When I move out to LA this August, I am tentatively planning on moving in with Brian the MPA guy (our filmmaker-in-residence). He has a furnished apartment and an extra bedroom that I am tentatively planning on sharing with Nick, another hall counselor here who is also relocating to LA.
Not everyone is supportive when I tell them this plan.
They think it will be not fun for me to live with two men who I’m not really friends with, especially since one of them has a dog and is an INTJ. They think I can find cheap rent elsewhere, with nice girls who will become kindred spirits. And maybe they’re right. And maybe a year out, I will find that group of my future bridesmaids and say adios to Brian and Beau (his dog). But when I think about my future LA-existence, it is not the dog or the men that most concerns me. It is the fact that I won’t be able to bring my stuff.
Yes. My stuff.
I don’t consider myself a materialistic person by nature. I’m not super attached to any particular item of clothing, any book, mug, photograph, piece of jewelry. When I lend stuff out, I do it with the knowledge that it could very well never be returned to me, and I am okay with this. It is not a particular painting or dress that I depend on for happiness. It is, instead, the composite of all my belongings.
You see, I am a homebody. And I like my home to look nice, to feel welcoming, to exude warmth.
My senior year of college, I arrived at my apartment before all of my roommates did. I got there at night, around 8pm, and I had to board a bus the next morning for a leadership retreat up in northern Wisconsin. So instead of collecting all my stuff from various storage spaces around campus and then heading to bed, I collected all my stuff, bought a venti iced coffee, and stayed up until 5am, unpacking. I cannot feel at rest until everything is in place.
A few weeks later, when the apartment was nearly settled and classes were in full swing, my mom drove down for the day. When she arrived, we went out to lunch, and then I asked her what she wanted to do with the afternoon. “Well, whatever you want to do, sweetie.” And since I believed her when she said this, and since my mother is one of the most easy-to-please individuals on the planet, so content just mucking out a shed or reading the newest copy of Guideposts*, I blurted out, “I really just want to find something to put on our empty wall in the living room!”
Seriously. It was the blank wall that was keeping me up at night.
But, I mean, understandably. It was entirely unaesthetic, unbeautiful, unwelcoming. And I could just imagine everyone who entered our apartment thinking to themselves, “Look what they’ve done with the place...Oh yeah. Nothing.” So it was partially my own dissatisfaction with the way our apartment looked and felt, and it was also, I do admit, pride.** I wanted a space that I could confidently invite people into, and with the white wall glaring back at me, I could not do this.***
So Mom and I spent the day in the car (after she had already spent three hours driving down from Wisconsin and was to spend another three driving back). We hit up the resale furniture store, the Hobby Lobby, multiple Goodwills. We discussed buying frames and printing out some of my Europe pictures. We opined about how big the artwork would need to be, how many pieces we’d need, and what would complement (rather than take away from) the opposing wall of mirrors that hung above the couch.
And finally, we met success. At our final Goodwill stop, we found an old black-and-white New York print, already framed. It wasn’t big enough to fill the wall on its own, but it looked like the perfect accompaniment to a different black-and-white NYC print we’d seen at Hobby Lobby. So I bought the one at Goodwill, and then we drove back to retrieve the other, and my mother graciously paid for the frame, which was the most expensive part of the whole ordeal.****
Back at the apartment, we aligned the pictures and put the nails in straight. And as we looked at the finished product, at the completed apartment, I teared up. It was beautiful, and homey, and I was so content with living out the next nine months of my life within its walls.
So as you can see, I’m a tad bit affected by my surroundings. Another illustration of this is the fact that I can never spend the night at my friend Kayla’s apartment. Kayla lives in Madison with a group of roommates that is always shifting, and whenever I visit her, her residence is full of pets, empty booze bottles, and piles of books, clothes, cds, etc. I love Kayla, and I understand that her house is her house and she can keep it how she wants, but it drives me a certain type of crazy, and if she leaves me alone for a minute, I cannot help but start washing the dishes that her drunken roommates have left piled around the sink. Therefore, when I visit, we usually go out, and I do not spend the night.
This slight neurosis about my surroundings has gotten better over the years (I think/hope/pretend), and it was good for me to backpack last summer, to stay in hostels that were ugly and dirty and reminiscent of prisons or psych wards. It forced me to be adaptable, though I admit that every time we ended up at a particularly nice hostel, my mood definitely improved. And so while I am a bit anxious about moving into a bachelor pad that’s already (sort-of) decorated, I will manage.
When I move to LA, I will drive my car, taking only as much of my things as I can reasonably stuff into it without getting pulled over for impaired vision. And this means that I will have to say good-bye to some key items - lamps, my coffee table, and the purple velvet armchair that has served as my go-to writing spot for the past three years.***** I will have to start over, decorating-wise, and my space will no longer look like it once did. For a while my space will look like Brian’s space, and when I eventually move out of there, I will have to do another round of garage-saling and Target-clearance-racking to make my new place a home I can contentedly invite people into.
So this isn’t ideal for me, this purging of my things, the items that created a space I wrote in and fed people in and had meaningful conversations in. And I could wrap this up easily with the idea that my stuff was never what made those things happen in the first place, but I don’t think that would be entirely accurate. The environment does matter. The aesthetic does matter. I firmly believe that part of the reason why my girls come to my room every Tuesday night for tea is because it is such a lovely room to sit in. But. A lovely room can be re-created, and so I will take what I can and give the rest away, hopefully to people whose lives will be just a little bit enhanced by a funky lamp and a comfy purple chair.
__________________
*A magazine of inspirational, usually Jesus-y, stories.
**Go figure.
***In fact, anytime anyone stopped by, I’d preface my opening of the door with, “We’re not done decorating!”
****As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my parents emanate generosity.
*****During my RA year, anytime one of my girls came in to talk to me, I was sitting (or sleeping) in my purple chair. They came to associate me with it so much that on the rare day when I wasn’t sitting in it, they were afraid to sit there themselves.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
you don't know me at all
Sometimes you can have many people who love you, and still you feel uncared for. Sometimes you are given many specimens of life, creatures who know you as well as time and proximity and mood has allowed for, creatures with whom you have shared yourself perhaps more than many others can say they’ve shared their own selves to the people they call friends, and you have great closeness with these creatures, and yet you dip into periods of aloneness, of isolation, of the sense that you have never been remotely understood. These feelings do not last long, and they bear no truth, and yet they grip you with terror and sadness nonetheless. You are grateful that these waves do not surface very often, that you can usually stand on the shore of your existence without being toppled over by insecurity and the paralyzing thought that you are completely unknown.
In my last blog post, I reflected on the risk that comes with being known, with having your ugliness exposed. But there also exists the fear of not being known.
I like to think that I am quite easy to get to know, and also that I have a real desire to know those around me. But even as an extrovert, I’ve had occasions when interacting with people is not only an undesirable activity but one that causes great stress. For multiple reasons, depending on people and context:
1. I overanalyze social dynamics. I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy considering who is holding the power in the conversation and in the relationship, who is dominating and who is being passive. I read into how much people say and what they choose to say, how they’re trying to present themselves and how they’re being perceived, what they think of me, the things I’m saying, and the language I use.
2. I feel pressure to entertain. There were times, especially at Wheaton, where I would go into a coffee date or a dinner with someone and feel as if he/she expected me to either be a) funny
(often with my latest failed romantic attempt as the means to this end) or b) insightful (with candid, profanity-laced* explanations of my doubts, my hangups, my epiphanies about beauty and community and art).
3. I realize that good, meaningful conversations often cannot be had effortlessly. At Wheaton, it was tempting to resort to standard conversational topics. Even “deeper” issues became commonplace and stale - simple living, certain theological debates, the deplorable and depressing status of our dating climate. Here at boarding school, among the hall counselors, dinner discussions are also usually limited, but it’s to the students’ shenanigans and general complaints about the job. Which is fine. We complain because our complaints are relatable and nonprovocative. But to get beyond this, to have a conversation that is stimulating and original, one must probe for relevant topics, ask thoughtful questions, be willing to accept silences and dead-ends, disagreements and clash in perspective.
So even with people I love and adore, I worry sometimes that the conversing and the consequential knowing won’t happen as I want them to.
This past weekend, I drove down to Wheaton. I had gotten a couple days off, and it seemed like the opportune time to go and visit some of my friends who will soon be graduating and dispersing. And yet. I was apprehensive. I worried that the closeness I once felt towards the people I was planning on seeing would be gone, that those who had once fit so easily in my life would feel awkward or irrelevant.
But when I entered the apartment of my friend Trca, I realized the trip was not a mistake. She fixed me Royal Rum tea, and we made sweet potato and feta pizza, and I was home. Sitting at her kitchen table, I bore no pressure to be deep or humorous. The conversation flowed without any psychoanalysis. We swapped stories and shared writing. We gossiped and laughed. There existed between us an implicit love of of the other’s differences and commonalities; Trca appreciated my quirks and found them endearing, she sympathized with my personality because it’s so much like her own, and I did not have to explain my family to her because she already knew. Trca has an understanding of me, a knowing of me; she has a hold on my essence.
After Trc, Megan picked me up to go out for dessert. Meg and I spent two months together in Europe this past summer, and I’ve probably spent more straight concentrated time with her than I ever will with another human being.** Meg told me about her plans for post-graduation, and about her Wheaton drama, and I told her about boarding school living, the kids I’ve gotten close to and the teenage lingo I’ve unfortunately picked up.
Then I told Meg about what’s been on my heart lately, and the things that make me sad, and her face took on this beautiful, selfless compassion. Because she knew me, and the way I am in life - what causes me to bruise, and the sensitivity of my soul. And her true knowing of this opened up my lungs; my breathing did not demand so much concentration. Her knowing allowed me to carry my hurt without shame, and because of this I could hear her words and her advice, the wisdom that was catered to me.***
None of this is new, my gratitude for friends who know me and my occasional waves of forgetfulness. These are things I have blogged about before and will probably blog about again. But I think they’re worth sustained attention because the knowing is what makes up a lot of relationships, and relationships make up the substance of our lives. We are all individual entities, yes, but all of us are being formed by others, cast in new directions because of them, and it is their presence that gives our own existence color and beauty.
*A rarity in some circles at Wheaton.
**Even if I get married some day, our time together will be interrupted by work; I cannot envision a summer-long honeymoon.
***I feel like I must note that even though I only mentioned Meg and Trc in this post, it was lovely and life-giving to spend time with other people this weekend as well.
In my last blog post, I reflected on the risk that comes with being known, with having your ugliness exposed. But there also exists the fear of not being known.
I like to think that I am quite easy to get to know, and also that I have a real desire to know those around me. But even as an extrovert, I’ve had occasions when interacting with people is not only an undesirable activity but one that causes great stress. For multiple reasons, depending on people and context:
1. I overanalyze social dynamics. I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy considering who is holding the power in the conversation and in the relationship, who is dominating and who is being passive. I read into how much people say and what they choose to say, how they’re trying to present themselves and how they’re being perceived, what they think of me, the things I’m saying, and the language I use.
2. I feel pressure to entertain. There were times, especially at Wheaton, where I would go into a coffee date or a dinner with someone and feel as if he/she expected me to either be a) funny
(often with my latest failed romantic attempt as the means to this end) or b) insightful (with candid, profanity-laced* explanations of my doubts, my hangups, my epiphanies about beauty and community and art).
3. I realize that good, meaningful conversations often cannot be had effortlessly. At Wheaton, it was tempting to resort to standard conversational topics. Even “deeper” issues became commonplace and stale - simple living, certain theological debates, the deplorable and depressing status of our dating climate. Here at boarding school, among the hall counselors, dinner discussions are also usually limited, but it’s to the students’ shenanigans and general complaints about the job. Which is fine. We complain because our complaints are relatable and nonprovocative. But to get beyond this, to have a conversation that is stimulating and original, one must probe for relevant topics, ask thoughtful questions, be willing to accept silences and dead-ends, disagreements and clash in perspective.
So even with people I love and adore, I worry sometimes that the conversing and the consequential knowing won’t happen as I want them to.
This past weekend, I drove down to Wheaton. I had gotten a couple days off, and it seemed like the opportune time to go and visit some of my friends who will soon be graduating and dispersing. And yet. I was apprehensive. I worried that the closeness I once felt towards the people I was planning on seeing would be gone, that those who had once fit so easily in my life would feel awkward or irrelevant.
But when I entered the apartment of my friend Trca, I realized the trip was not a mistake. She fixed me Royal Rum tea, and we made sweet potato and feta pizza, and I was home. Sitting at her kitchen table, I bore no pressure to be deep or humorous. The conversation flowed without any psychoanalysis. We swapped stories and shared writing. We gossiped and laughed. There existed between us an implicit love of of the other’s differences and commonalities; Trca appreciated my quirks and found them endearing, she sympathized with my personality because it’s so much like her own, and I did not have to explain my family to her because she already knew. Trca has an understanding of me, a knowing of me; she has a hold on my essence.
After Trc, Megan picked me up to go out for dessert. Meg and I spent two months together in Europe this past summer, and I’ve probably spent more straight concentrated time with her than I ever will with another human being.** Meg told me about her plans for post-graduation, and about her Wheaton drama, and I told her about boarding school living, the kids I’ve gotten close to and the teenage lingo I’ve unfortunately picked up.
Then I told Meg about what’s been on my heart lately, and the things that make me sad, and her face took on this beautiful, selfless compassion. Because she knew me, and the way I am in life - what causes me to bruise, and the sensitivity of my soul. And her true knowing of this opened up my lungs; my breathing did not demand so much concentration. Her knowing allowed me to carry my hurt without shame, and because of this I could hear her words and her advice, the wisdom that was catered to me.***
None of this is new, my gratitude for friends who know me and my occasional waves of forgetfulness. These are things I have blogged about before and will probably blog about again. But I think they’re worth sustained attention because the knowing is what makes up a lot of relationships, and relationships make up the substance of our lives. We are all individual entities, yes, but all of us are being formed by others, cast in new directions because of them, and it is their presence that gives our own existence color and beauty.
*A rarity in some circles at Wheaton.
**Even if I get married some day, our time together will be interrupted by work; I cannot envision a summer-long honeymoon.
***I feel like I must note that even though I only mentioned Meg and Trc in this post, it was lovely and life-giving to spend time with other people this weekend as well.
Monday, April 16, 2012
to recognize your ugliness
Sometimes I am afraid of people seeing me.
This is not a new problem.
I am afraid that if they see enough of my crazy or enough of my ugliness, they will stop loving me. They will deem me no longer worthy of investment. They will dump me.
Last year, I brought a few of my friends up to Sheboygan for the weekend. Included in the mix was my dear roommate, Becca. Usually I have great love for Becca, and I think that nearly everything she does is endearing, and every word she says is either insightful or hilarious, but I was not digging her in that car ride home. As a rule, I am an anxious driver, and not the most conscientious, and Becca was convinced that I was veering too close to the other lane, that I was going to slide up against a semi and send us to our deaths. And I snapped at her. I said, “Well, Becs, it’s been two hours, and we’re still alive, so I must not be doing everything wrong, huh?” And then we should have just listened to Ben Folds, as was the original intention, but instead we got to talking about guys. Becca had just been on a date with one of my friends, and even though they both reported that it had gone well, she was incredibly cynical about future possibilities. She wouldn’t permit herself to conceive of a second date, and I snapped again. “You need to stop pretending that you don’t have a vendetta against men, because it’s all over everything you say about anyone with a penis!”
We finally arrived, and thankfully the tenseness melted, and my parents fed us and asked the girls questions, and things were better at surface-level.
That night, Becca and Trc took my old room, and Meg and I got my brothers’ room. Meg and I lied on the matching twin beds, and I admitted my frustration. The scary thing about it all was not that I was irritated with Becca. A little irritation is understandable and human. But I had gotten so worked up about it that I started questioning why I was continuing to invest. After all, in a couple months we’d be graduating, and she’d be moving to Prague for who knew how long, and what was the point, really? I had other friends who’d be in closer proximity, friends who didn’t nag me about my driving.
And as I told all that to Meg, I realized, again, what a shitty person I can be. I was entertaining thoughts of casting off Becs as a friend for some very small flaws (that could easily be chalked up to my own impatience and insecurity). I was treating our friendship as disposable and undeserving of work. I was giving her the same abandon that I constantly worry about other people giving me.
On my sad days at Wheaton, I sometimes did not know who to call or whose apartment door to knock on. I feared being an inconvenience. I feared being clingy. I feared that my problems and my ugliness would be discovered. On a couple occasions, I unleashed my anxieties to people outside my friend group. I remember having lunch with one guy for the first time, and I decided that since he hadn’t yet accepted me as a friend, there was no way he could reject me, so he became a sounding board for all my emotional turmoil.
I think that maybe we are all afraid that our ugliness will be discovered. We don’t want it to be found by our friends, by the people who know us and love us best, because then, yes, they can reject us, but also because it makes our ugliness real. I think about myself sometimes, that parts of my being are notbeautiful, but these are fears I keep hidden, untalked about, because that makes them as less real as they can be.
Last week I went to see a performance by Teri, the ceramics teacher here. She began with a very handsome, symmetrical clay mask that she placed over her face, and as the musicians played, she transformed it. She scraped it up. She distorted the nose. Symmetry was lost. Pieces of clay were elongated and coiled and placed on her head. And as I watched her, I cringed a little. She’s making herself so ugly, I thought. But at the end of the performance, Teri looked at herself, looked at her chin that was falling off, it was so torn and destructed, and you could see, even with the mask on, that she found satisfaction with her reflection. And she took off the mask, and she was triumphant.
Many conclusions could be drawn from the performance, lots to be said about beauty and notbeauty, about what we do to our appearances, about how we perceive people and ourselves. But at the end, with Teri’s contented look, I could only think about the freedom that comes when we recognize our ugliness. Not that Teri’s transformed face was ugly, but that’s how I initially took it to be, that’s what the easy answer was. She triumphed, though, when she made a truer version of herself, and when she accepted it, and when we watched her and were, in a sense, forced to accept it as well.
I want to be able to own the shit in my life, to see where I am ugly and to show that ugliness to the people who love me. I want to trust that they will still love the more real and even more imperfect version of myself.
This is not a new problem.
I am afraid that if they see enough of my crazy or enough of my ugliness, they will stop loving me. They will deem me no longer worthy of investment. They will dump me.
Last year, I brought a few of my friends up to Sheboygan for the weekend. Included in the mix was my dear roommate, Becca. Usually I have great love for Becca, and I think that nearly everything she does is endearing, and every word she says is either insightful or hilarious, but I was not digging her in that car ride home. As a rule, I am an anxious driver, and not the most conscientious, and Becca was convinced that I was veering too close to the other lane, that I was going to slide up against a semi and send us to our deaths. And I snapped at her. I said, “Well, Becs, it’s been two hours, and we’re still alive, so I must not be doing everything wrong, huh?” And then we should have just listened to Ben Folds, as was the original intention, but instead we got to talking about guys. Becca had just been on a date with one of my friends, and even though they both reported that it had gone well, she was incredibly cynical about future possibilities. She wouldn’t permit herself to conceive of a second date, and I snapped again. “You need to stop pretending that you don’t have a vendetta against men, because it’s all over everything you say about anyone with a penis!”
We finally arrived, and thankfully the tenseness melted, and my parents fed us and asked the girls questions, and things were better at surface-level.
That night, Becca and Trc took my old room, and Meg and I got my brothers’ room. Meg and I lied on the matching twin beds, and I admitted my frustration. The scary thing about it all was not that I was irritated with Becca. A little irritation is understandable and human. But I had gotten so worked up about it that I started questioning why I was continuing to invest. After all, in a couple months we’d be graduating, and she’d be moving to Prague for who knew how long, and what was the point, really? I had other friends who’d be in closer proximity, friends who didn’t nag me about my driving.
And as I told all that to Meg, I realized, again, what a shitty person I can be. I was entertaining thoughts of casting off Becs as a friend for some very small flaws (that could easily be chalked up to my own impatience and insecurity). I was treating our friendship as disposable and undeserving of work. I was giving her the same abandon that I constantly worry about other people giving me.
On my sad days at Wheaton, I sometimes did not know who to call or whose apartment door to knock on. I feared being an inconvenience. I feared being clingy. I feared that my problems and my ugliness would be discovered. On a couple occasions, I unleashed my anxieties to people outside my friend group. I remember having lunch with one guy for the first time, and I decided that since he hadn’t yet accepted me as a friend, there was no way he could reject me, so he became a sounding board for all my emotional turmoil.
I think that maybe we are all afraid that our ugliness will be discovered. We don’t want it to be found by our friends, by the people who know us and love us best, because then, yes, they can reject us, but also because it makes our ugliness real. I think about myself sometimes, that parts of my being are notbeautiful, but these are fears I keep hidden, untalked about, because that makes them as less real as they can be.
Last week I went to see a performance by Teri, the ceramics teacher here. She began with a very handsome, symmetrical clay mask that she placed over her face, and as the musicians played, she transformed it. She scraped it up. She distorted the nose. Symmetry was lost. Pieces of clay were elongated and coiled and placed on her head. And as I watched her, I cringed a little. She’s making herself so ugly, I thought. But at the end of the performance, Teri looked at herself, looked at her chin that was falling off, it was so torn and destructed, and you could see, even with the mask on, that she found satisfaction with her reflection. And she took off the mask, and she was triumphant.
Many conclusions could be drawn from the performance, lots to be said about beauty and notbeauty, about what we do to our appearances, about how we perceive people and ourselves. But at the end, with Teri’s contented look, I could only think about the freedom that comes when we recognize our ugliness. Not that Teri’s transformed face was ugly, but that’s how I initially took it to be, that’s what the easy answer was. She triumphed, though, when she made a truer version of herself, and when she accepted it, and when we watched her and were, in a sense, forced to accept it as well.
I want to be able to own the shit in my life, to see where I am ugly and to show that ugliness to the people who love me. I want to trust that they will still love the more real and even more imperfect version of myself.
Monday, April 2, 2012
if loving were easy, it wouldn't be love
We learn how to love through the love that people show us. When they love us poorly and distractedly, we only know how to give half-baked love. When they love deeply and selflessly, we are more likely to love with the same abandon. I am grateful for friends who know how to love and love well, for I’m hoping their care is turning me into a greater and purer love-giver.
Ben and I met during our junior year. We were on the same RA staff team, and in one of the first weeks, when we were still figuring each other out and wondering if a friendship would form, he visited my room, and I asked for the unabridged history of his love life. One of his earliest girlfriends was a chick named Emily. After he told me about the dissolution of the relationship, I said, consolatorily, “Whatevs, I hate the name Emily.” He cocked his head and said, “That’s my mom’s name, bitch.” In that moment, for me, our future as friends was cemented. He thought I was funny, and I didn’t feel judged by him.
I could say a lot of nice things about Ben, but the story that best speaks to his personhood and his character happened last year. Ben spent the fall semester studying abroad at Oxford, and when he got back in the spring, I was student teaching. With me drowning in lesson plans and both of us attempting to figure out our futures (and the fact that Ben lost at least thirty pounds in England and was suddenly a magnet for female attention), it was not the best time for us to reconnect as friends. But one night we planned on hanging out -- I think we were going to get coffee. When he came over to my apartment at 8, though, I was not ready to go. Instead, I was rushing around, frazzled, trying to pick up the living room, trying to find the students’ poems I had misplaced, trying to not have a nervous breakdown because graduation was a month away and I didn’t have a job or a husband (I’d been hoping to graduate with at least one of the two). Ben leaned against my kitchen cabinets and waited. “Take your time,” he said. I brushed it away. I said, “Oh no, just one second. I’m sorry, it’s been a hard day, and busy. I don’t know if I’ll make for an awesome conversational partner tonight.” He looked at me very carefully. “Have you eaten dinner?” he asked. I told him I hadn’t, and he said, “Sit down, Rach. I’m going to make you dinner, and you’re going to talk for as long as you want about whatever is on your mind, okay?”
Frying up some vegetables and eggs and listening as someone talks for twenty straight minutes about her problem students and her unoriginal life concerns and her general nonsensical anxieties is one of the best ways you can love someone, I think.
Ben and I met during our junior year. We were on the same RA staff team, and in one of the first weeks, when we were still figuring each other out and wondering if a friendship would form, he visited my room, and I asked for the unabridged history of his love life. One of his earliest girlfriends was a chick named Emily. After he told me about the dissolution of the relationship, I said, consolatorily, “Whatevs, I hate the name Emily.” He cocked his head and said, “That’s my mom’s name, bitch.” In that moment, for me, our future as friends was cemented. He thought I was funny, and I didn’t feel judged by him.
I could say a lot of nice things about Ben, but the story that best speaks to his personhood and his character happened last year. Ben spent the fall semester studying abroad at Oxford, and when he got back in the spring, I was student teaching. With me drowning in lesson plans and both of us attempting to figure out our futures (and the fact that Ben lost at least thirty pounds in England and was suddenly a magnet for female attention), it was not the best time for us to reconnect as friends. But one night we planned on hanging out -- I think we were going to get coffee. When he came over to my apartment at 8, though, I was not ready to go. Instead, I was rushing around, frazzled, trying to pick up the living room, trying to find the students’ poems I had misplaced, trying to not have a nervous breakdown because graduation was a month away and I didn’t have a job or a husband (I’d been hoping to graduate with at least one of the two). Ben leaned against my kitchen cabinets and waited. “Take your time,” he said. I brushed it away. I said, “Oh no, just one second. I’m sorry, it’s been a hard day, and busy. I don’t know if I’ll make for an awesome conversational partner tonight.” He looked at me very carefully. “Have you eaten dinner?” he asked. I told him I hadn’t, and he said, “Sit down, Rach. I’m going to make you dinner, and you’re going to talk for as long as you want about whatever is on your mind, okay?”
Frying up some vegetables and eggs and listening as someone talks for twenty straight minutes about her problem students and her unoriginal life concerns and her general nonsensical anxieties is one of the best ways you can love someone, I think.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
go where you wanna go
Last month, I interviewed for a teaching job. It seemed perfect. Orchestrated by God. It was a private school but had a salary I could at least survive on. The teachers were Christians but most of the students weren’t. The kids were behind but wanted to improve. And it was in Chicago, where so many of my dear college friends reside, only 45 minutes from Wheaton, where some of my dear YHMers would still be in attendance. I’d have people to live with, people to be friends with, and a job that aligned with my skill set. I’d be in a city, and whether or not I would date, at least I would have options.*
And it felt good to be pretty secure in this possibility. To have a direction, a city, a job, a picture of the next couple years. But a week or two ago, I second-guessed and thought of LA.
The idea of LA has been on my mind for over a year now, since I did Rachel Dates and started considering screenwriting.** This year, I’ve spent a good deal of time reading screenplays and making drafts of my own. A couple people have looked at my stuff, and I printed a copy of one screenplay for the filmmaker-in-residence here at the school, a guy from LA who came just for the semester to teach. At dinner one night, I asked him about the entertainment industry, and screenwriting and directing, and his success. I asked if he’d gotten around to reading my work. He told me this: Your screenplay is good. But even if your screenplay is amazing, it will be next to impossible to get it produced. He said: It is easier to sell a novel than it is to get a screenplay bought and made into a film. And naturally, I thought: Well, I need to go to LA and try to make it happen anyway.
With the adrenaline coursing through me, suddenly I no longer knew what I wanted. That isn’t true. I knew what I wanted, but the problem was that I wanted too many things, and I wanted them all at once, and I didn’t know what I wanted the most. And I freaked out, wondering if my inability to pick a direction and a dream would paralyze me, would keep me from advancing to anything noteworthy. I called my friend Brittaini, because in those moments of petty crisis, you need someone to tell you what reality is, and to remind you that you’re not a fuck-up. Which she did. I told her I wanted to teach, I really did, but also I wanted to move to LA, but it wasn’t practical and I was afraid. I told her that I was jealous of my students, who all seem to know exactly what they want and are willing to pursue it relentlessly. She said yes, they’re doing that, but things change in five years. You gain some clarity by the time college ends. You realize the costs, how tough it’s going to be. You get a better handle on the options. Maybe you wanted to be a writer in high school. But what kind of writer? For what audience? What genre? Are you willing to not live off your writing? You okay with technical writing? Ghost writing? Teaching writing? Journalism? Will you be happy doing something else if you just pen a poem now and then? Think you wanna go get your MFA? What if you don’t get published? Are you willing to sacrifice time and energy to compose pieces that may or may not ever be read?
Brittaini said it’s okay that I’m stuck here, tangled up in so many things that I love. I love reslife, and my girls. I loved student teaching, and I think I could be a great educator one day if I commit to it. I love to write, and I think the strengths of my writing are suited for the screen, and I’m very interested in the power of the media. I could do a number of things and still be content. But then how do I know which way to go? After my talk with Britt, I also emoted to Henry, and he said that maybe you don’t know what you want the most until you do it. Here I am in northern Michigan, living in a dorm, hanging out with teenagers - how can I possibly know if I want to sign up for a life of poverty and rejection and failed networking attempts in LA, where everyone runs and wears make-up on a daily basis?*** How can I know if I want it enough to say that’s all worth it?
On Wednesday I heard back from the Chicago job, and I didn’t get it. I was in the dorm lobby, and I shouted to the emptiness, “I would be such an awesome teacher, you stupid asshole administrators! It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?!?!” I was mad because they didn’t want me, because the option got snatched away, because life wasn’t going to look the way I can easily imagine it looking. But as some kids filed in to sign in for the night and I complained to them, one of them raised an eyebrow and said, “Who cares? You want to go to LA.” And I said, “Oh. Yeah.”
Maybe screenwriting isn’t what I want or love the most, but if I do want and love it, I think now’s the time to try to make it work. It’s risky and it’s not practical, but I think 23 is an appropriate age for risky, impractical endeavors.
Right?
------------
*During a conversation about the future and having lives that no longer exist solely to meet the demands of teenagers, my friend Henry paused and said, “You’re going to have pickings next year!”
**Anyone remember this post? http://racheltellsitlikeitis.blogspot.com/2011/05/pink-prophet-of-our-generation.html
***Honestly, that sounds horrible.
And it felt good to be pretty secure in this possibility. To have a direction, a city, a job, a picture of the next couple years. But a week or two ago, I second-guessed and thought of LA.
The idea of LA has been on my mind for over a year now, since I did Rachel Dates and started considering screenwriting.** This year, I’ve spent a good deal of time reading screenplays and making drafts of my own. A couple people have looked at my stuff, and I printed a copy of one screenplay for the filmmaker-in-residence here at the school, a guy from LA who came just for the semester to teach. At dinner one night, I asked him about the entertainment industry, and screenwriting and directing, and his success. I asked if he’d gotten around to reading my work. He told me this: Your screenplay is good. But even if your screenplay is amazing, it will be next to impossible to get it produced. He said: It is easier to sell a novel than it is to get a screenplay bought and made into a film. And naturally, I thought: Well, I need to go to LA and try to make it happen anyway.
With the adrenaline coursing through me, suddenly I no longer knew what I wanted. That isn’t true. I knew what I wanted, but the problem was that I wanted too many things, and I wanted them all at once, and I didn’t know what I wanted the most. And I freaked out, wondering if my inability to pick a direction and a dream would paralyze me, would keep me from advancing to anything noteworthy. I called my friend Brittaini, because in those moments of petty crisis, you need someone to tell you what reality is, and to remind you that you’re not a fuck-up. Which she did. I told her I wanted to teach, I really did, but also I wanted to move to LA, but it wasn’t practical and I was afraid. I told her that I was jealous of my students, who all seem to know exactly what they want and are willing to pursue it relentlessly. She said yes, they’re doing that, but things change in five years. You gain some clarity by the time college ends. You realize the costs, how tough it’s going to be. You get a better handle on the options. Maybe you wanted to be a writer in high school. But what kind of writer? For what audience? What genre? Are you willing to not live off your writing? You okay with technical writing? Ghost writing? Teaching writing? Journalism? Will you be happy doing something else if you just pen a poem now and then? Think you wanna go get your MFA? What if you don’t get published? Are you willing to sacrifice time and energy to compose pieces that may or may not ever be read?
Brittaini said it’s okay that I’m stuck here, tangled up in so many things that I love. I love reslife, and my girls. I loved student teaching, and I think I could be a great educator one day if I commit to it. I love to write, and I think the strengths of my writing are suited for the screen, and I’m very interested in the power of the media. I could do a number of things and still be content. But then how do I know which way to go? After my talk with Britt, I also emoted to Henry, and he said that maybe you don’t know what you want the most until you do it. Here I am in northern Michigan, living in a dorm, hanging out with teenagers - how can I possibly know if I want to sign up for a life of poverty and rejection and failed networking attempts in LA, where everyone runs and wears make-up on a daily basis?*** How can I know if I want it enough to say that’s all worth it?
On Wednesday I heard back from the Chicago job, and I didn’t get it. I was in the dorm lobby, and I shouted to the emptiness, “I would be such an awesome teacher, you stupid asshole administrators! It’s because I’m white, isn’t it?!?!” I was mad because they didn’t want me, because the option got snatched away, because life wasn’t going to look the way I can easily imagine it looking. But as some kids filed in to sign in for the night and I complained to them, one of them raised an eyebrow and said, “Who cares? You want to go to LA.” And I said, “Oh. Yeah.”
Maybe screenwriting isn’t what I want or love the most, but if I do want and love it, I think now’s the time to try to make it work. It’s risky and it’s not practical, but I think 23 is an appropriate age for risky, impractical endeavors.
Right?
------------
*During a conversation about the future and having lives that no longer exist solely to meet the demands of teenagers, my friend Henry paused and said, “You’re going to have pickings next year!”
**Anyone remember this post? http://racheltellsitlikeitis.blogspot.com/2011/05/pink-prophet-of-our-generation.html
***Honestly, that sounds horrible.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
words not enough
This is a little fiction ditty. It's not a short story but more of a sketch.
-----------
Words are all I have now, maybe all I had then. He took me to an art museum once, and on another day to a ballet, and at the museum I grew paralyzed with the notknowing and the questions and the colors objects meanings so unclear, nearly unsayable. At the ballet I did not have the energy to be caught in such a mess of movements and melodies unarticulated, and so I slept. Sleep is where you can escape the words, almost escape, with dreams that tell stories nonsensical, or no dreams at all, and just resting, just being, just living without words.
He tried to tell me that I didn’t need the words, that one could enjoy the walk through the woods without processing each moment of it, without noting the jumbled shapes of shade cast from the rolling branches of leaves, without addressing the smell of a rotting tree trunk, the snap of dead branches, the prick of a thistle. He said it was easy to take it in, to hold those moments with clarity, with freedom and space, and not to ascribe words to them. Naming cheapens, he tended to believe.
But I am trapped by these words, and he probably is too, whether or not he realizes it. We understand through words, experience through words, live because of them. For hours at the art museum, he sat in front of a single painting, and I asked him why. It’s beautiful, he said. Beauty captures us, I am sure, but I hesitate to say that the draw of beauty alone can hold someone still for three hours. What, I wondered, went on as he stared at the oils slathered. More thoughts must have entered and swirled around his mind, thoughts made of words that stayed him on that bench. It wasn’t the beauty of the painting itself; it was his experience with it, his thoughts about it and about else, and these are things built of words.
I love to articulate everything, and for a long time, perhaps even until the end, he was perplexed by this. I am sure most people carry feelings and thoughts constantly with them, but most people do not push or perhaps allow themselves to put audible words to them. And it’s not so socially acceptable to say, “I have run out of interesting things to say right now, and I’m worried that you will consequently think I’m boring, disinterested, or stupid.” It is not okay to ask, “Why do I not feel emotionally safe in your presence?” And people have these words inside of them but they do not share them as I do, and he could not let it go. I could not permit my feelings to be unexplained. If there was no one to listen and no paper to fill, I gave them my full mental attention, putting them to sentences that were made of words though never recorded. What good is it to feel, I thought, if it cannot be named. To name is to understand. I wanted to understand what I felt and thought, wanted to be able to not box it up and categorize it but hold onto it, look at it, examine.
I wonder if others do this. He did not. He drank his coffee, ran his miles, kissed my ear without words. Words were in those things, made those things, but he did not name them like I did. He didn’t think of it. He didn’t want to. They mattered enough without. Maybe because they were without. Nothing mattered without them to me, though. Was this our greatest difference? Was this the reason he left, leaving the cruelest way possible, without any words to explain?
He tried to tell me that I didn’t need the words, that one could enjoy the walk through the woods without processing each moment of it, without noting the jumbled shapes of shade cast from the rolling branches of leaves, without addressing the smell of a rotting tree trunk, the snap of dead branches, the prick of a thistle. He said it was easy to take it in, to hold those moments with clarity, with freedom and space, and not to ascribe words to them. Naming cheapens, he tended to believe.
But I am trapped by these words, and he probably is too, whether or not he realizes it. We understand through words, experience through words, live because of them. For hours at the art museum, he sat in front of a single painting, and I asked him why. It’s beautiful, he said. Beauty captures us, I am sure, but I hesitate to say that the draw of beauty alone can hold someone still for three hours. What, I wondered, went on as he stared at the oils slathered. More thoughts must have entered and swirled around his mind, thoughts made of words that stayed him on that bench. It wasn’t the beauty of the painting itself; it was his experience with it, his thoughts about it and about else, and these are things built of words.
I love to articulate everything, and for a long time, perhaps even until the end, he was perplexed by this. I am sure most people carry feelings and thoughts constantly with them, but most people do not push or perhaps allow themselves to put audible words to them. And it’s not so socially acceptable to say, “I have run out of interesting things to say right now, and I’m worried that you will consequently think I’m boring, disinterested, or stupid.” It is not okay to ask, “Why do I not feel emotionally safe in your presence?” And people have these words inside of them but they do not share them as I do, and he could not let it go. I could not permit my feelings to be unexplained. If there was no one to listen and no paper to fill, I gave them my full mental attention, putting them to sentences that were made of words though never recorded. What good is it to feel, I thought, if it cannot be named. To name is to understand. I wanted to understand what I felt and thought, wanted to be able to not box it up and categorize it but hold onto it, look at it, examine.
I wonder if others do this. He did not. He drank his coffee, ran his miles, kissed my ear without words. Words were in those things, made those things, but he did not name them like I did. He didn’t think of it. He didn’t want to. They mattered enough without. Maybe because they were without. Nothing mattered without them to me, though. Was this our greatest difference? Was this the reason he left, leaving the cruelest way possible, without any words to explain?
Saturday, March 3, 2012
an open letter to my little sisters
Lina and Savvy are 7 and 8. They are my sisters, but they’re adopted, and so with fifteen years between us, sometimes I feel like a second mother to them. They are so young yet that we don’t really know who they will be and how they will turn out. I have many hopes for them, and fears, and this letter is for them, yes, but also for me, to remember that this is what I think even when it’s not how I feel.
In some ways, this is also a letter to the girls on my floor.
---------------------
It would be nice if you get careers in impressive fields, if you become lawyers or painters or professors. It would be nice if you make enough money to cushy up the family get-togethers, flying us all back to Wisconsin and taking us out for fancy meals. But I will love you with or without a PhD. I will love you no matter where you go to college, or if you go to college (though you’re going to graduate high school whether you like it or not). I will love you if you bomb the SAT, if you don’t go to a well-known school, if you fail Pre-Calc. These are imperfect measures of intelligence, and I hope you don’t allow them to determine how smart you think you are. I also hope you know you don’t have to be a certain level of smart for me to love you (but I do hope that you enjoy learning, and that you take advantage of your education).
It would be nice if you do really cool things, if you visit a lot of crazy places and meet a lot of crazy people. It would be nice if you develop talents for the ukulele or ceramics or tap dance or speaking Russian. I would be seriously impressed, and I’d probably brag about you. But I will still love you if your only language is English, if you never step outside the United States, if you watch more television per day than I think is healthy. You can lead a boring life, and I will still love you. But please cut back on the TV; it drives me a little crazy.
It would be nice if you don’t hate your bodies. I know you live in America, and women are objectified, and there’s immense pressure to have a slammin’ bod and all that. But I hope you learn that beauty is not limited to a certain body type. I think Mom’s beautiful, and her chest is as flat as mine. So please don’t drive yourselves crazy with diets and a glossy magazine’s picture of beautiful, and please don’t develop any eating disorders. Food is a lovely thing, and I want you to develop good relationships with it. But even if you do struggle with this (and I’m sure you will), and even if you become anorexic or beg Mom and Dad for plastic surgery, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please don’t be bulimic. It’s not good for you, and it freaks me out a little.
It would be nice if you don’t have sex until you’re married. Number one, it would make Mom and Dad really happy, and two, it would save you from pregnancy or any number of STDs. So I hope you wait. At least until you meet the right person, and you’re old enough to know what you’re doing and what you’re giving up and what it all entails. I hope that you think about and respect your sexuality and the sexuality of others. But even if you lose your virginity years before I ever thought about losing mine, even if you pop out a kid or two in high school, even if you become the town whore, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please try and avoid prostitution.
It would be nice if you go easy on the substances. I didn’t smoke until I was 18 and didn’t drink till I was 21, and maybe those aren’t realistic expectations to put on you, but I don’t think there’s ever a problem with waiting. I hope that when you drink, you do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because all your friends are doing it, or because you want to stick it to Mom and Dad, or because it’s the only way you’ll work up the courage to talk to some boy you have a crush on. I hope that you’re controlled and smart about it, that you do it with people who are responsible and trustworthy. Drinking, smoking, and other drugs in excess are bad for your health and are also a poor use of money. So be frugal Maczuzaks and take it easy. But even if you abuse alcohol, or try heroin, or smoke cigarettes before passing the threshold of high school graduation, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please don’t be a drug addict. I hear rehab’s not very fun.
It would be nice if you are good to Mom and Dad. They are not perfect, but they do try. It’ll be easy to blame them, easy to chalk up your problems to the adoption and to poor parenting, but please give them grace. They love you, even when it doesn’t seem like they do. Sometimes they don’t always show it in the ways that you’d most prefer, but that doesn’t make them terrible parents - only human. You’ve got it much better than a ton of other kids, and I hope you realize how good Mom and Dad are to you. I hope you appreciate them, and you thank them. But even if you’re ungrateful, and even if you spend years in therapy recovering from the alleged wrongs that Mom and Dad made you suffer through, I will still love you. But please go easy on Mom and Dad (they’re not getting any younger, after all).
It would be nice if you get along. Holly is my best friend, and Eli and Jake are pretty close, so it would be convenient if the two of you are friends. After all, you are the only ones who know what it’s like to be adopted into the Maczuzak family. You are each other’s allies. I hope you learn to share with each other, process with and encourage each other. I hope you take a backpacking trip across Europe together like Holly and I did, and that you realize how much love there is between you, and how much knowing of the other. But even if you hate each other and don’t swap clothes the way Hol and I do, even if you become people who just can’t get along, I will still love you. But please try and get along.
It would be nice if you are Christians. It makes Mom and Dad feel better, and Christianity has a lot of good things to offer. It gives you good reasons to live a certain way. It gives you an identity that isn’t your grades or your talents or your sex appeal. It offers hope. It provides a support system of people who care about you. But even if you reject Christianity, and even if you don’t go to Wheaton College, I will still love you. If you become Buddhist or Mormon or Muslim or agnostic, I will still love you. But please, give the church a try, and don’t join a cult (I would still love you if you do, but I would also pull you out of it and possibly get the police involved).
It would be nice if you become kind and loving people. I want you to become women of substance (note: not substances), who consider other people more important than yourselves, who give generously, who forgive without needing an apology, who love deeply and without judgment. I hope that you treat the people around you with respect and compassion, but even if it’s a struggle, and even if you disregard this philosophy that to love is good, I will still love you. You can be selfish bitches, and you can tear down everyone around you, and you can call my own love defunct, but I will still love you. Please try not to be heinous bitches, though.
I will love you always. If you lie. If you cheat. If you kill. If you molest. Please, please, please never do those things. But if you do. I will still love you.
I will still love you because you are my sisters. Because you are a part of my family. Because though we don’t survive on the same blood we bear the same name. Because somebody has to love you, and it’s just so convenient that I feel naturally inclined to anyway.
Girls, I am confident that you will become strong, smart, compassionate women. But I will love you even if you aren’t.
Just so you know.
In some ways, this is also a letter to the girls on my floor.
---------------------
It would be nice if you get careers in impressive fields, if you become lawyers or painters or professors. It would be nice if you make enough money to cushy up the family get-togethers, flying us all back to Wisconsin and taking us out for fancy meals. But I will love you with or without a PhD. I will love you no matter where you go to college, or if you go to college (though you’re going to graduate high school whether you like it or not). I will love you if you bomb the SAT, if you don’t go to a well-known school, if you fail Pre-Calc. These are imperfect measures of intelligence, and I hope you don’t allow them to determine how smart you think you are. I also hope you know you don’t have to be a certain level of smart for me to love you (but I do hope that you enjoy learning, and that you take advantage of your education).
It would be nice if you do really cool things, if you visit a lot of crazy places and meet a lot of crazy people. It would be nice if you develop talents for the ukulele or ceramics or tap dance or speaking Russian. I would be seriously impressed, and I’d probably brag about you. But I will still love you if your only language is English, if you never step outside the United States, if you watch more television per day than I think is healthy. You can lead a boring life, and I will still love you. But please cut back on the TV; it drives me a little crazy.
It would be nice if you don’t hate your bodies. I know you live in America, and women are objectified, and there’s immense pressure to have a slammin’ bod and all that. But I hope you learn that beauty is not limited to a certain body type. I think Mom’s beautiful, and her chest is as flat as mine. So please don’t drive yourselves crazy with diets and a glossy magazine’s picture of beautiful, and please don’t develop any eating disorders. Food is a lovely thing, and I want you to develop good relationships with it. But even if you do struggle with this (and I’m sure you will), and even if you become anorexic or beg Mom and Dad for plastic surgery, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please don’t be bulimic. It’s not good for you, and it freaks me out a little.
It would be nice if you don’t have sex until you’re married. Number one, it would make Mom and Dad really happy, and two, it would save you from pregnancy or any number of STDs. So I hope you wait. At least until you meet the right person, and you’re old enough to know what you’re doing and what you’re giving up and what it all entails. I hope that you think about and respect your sexuality and the sexuality of others. But even if you lose your virginity years before I ever thought about losing mine, even if you pop out a kid or two in high school, even if you become the town whore, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please try and avoid prostitution.
It would be nice if you go easy on the substances. I didn’t smoke until I was 18 and didn’t drink till I was 21, and maybe those aren’t realistic expectations to put on you, but I don’t think there’s ever a problem with waiting. I hope that when you drink, you do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because all your friends are doing it, or because you want to stick it to Mom and Dad, or because it’s the only way you’ll work up the courage to talk to some boy you have a crush on. I hope that you’re controlled and smart about it, that you do it with people who are responsible and trustworthy. Drinking, smoking, and other drugs in excess are bad for your health and are also a poor use of money. So be frugal Maczuzaks and take it easy. But even if you abuse alcohol, or try heroin, or smoke cigarettes before passing the threshold of high school graduation, I will still love you. I will still love you, but please don’t be a drug addict. I hear rehab’s not very fun.
It would be nice if you are good to Mom and Dad. They are not perfect, but they do try. It’ll be easy to blame them, easy to chalk up your problems to the adoption and to poor parenting, but please give them grace. They love you, even when it doesn’t seem like they do. Sometimes they don’t always show it in the ways that you’d most prefer, but that doesn’t make them terrible parents - only human. You’ve got it much better than a ton of other kids, and I hope you realize how good Mom and Dad are to you. I hope you appreciate them, and you thank them. But even if you’re ungrateful, and even if you spend years in therapy recovering from the alleged wrongs that Mom and Dad made you suffer through, I will still love you. But please go easy on Mom and Dad (they’re not getting any younger, after all).
It would be nice if you get along. Holly is my best friend, and Eli and Jake are pretty close, so it would be convenient if the two of you are friends. After all, you are the only ones who know what it’s like to be adopted into the Maczuzak family. You are each other’s allies. I hope you learn to share with each other, process with and encourage each other. I hope you take a backpacking trip across Europe together like Holly and I did, and that you realize how much love there is between you, and how much knowing of the other. But even if you hate each other and don’t swap clothes the way Hol and I do, even if you become people who just can’t get along, I will still love you. But please try and get along.
It would be nice if you are Christians. It makes Mom and Dad feel better, and Christianity has a lot of good things to offer. It gives you good reasons to live a certain way. It gives you an identity that isn’t your grades or your talents or your sex appeal. It offers hope. It provides a support system of people who care about you. But even if you reject Christianity, and even if you don’t go to Wheaton College, I will still love you. If you become Buddhist or Mormon or Muslim or agnostic, I will still love you. But please, give the church a try, and don’t join a cult (I would still love you if you do, but I would also pull you out of it and possibly get the police involved).
It would be nice if you become kind and loving people. I want you to become women of substance (note: not substances), who consider other people more important than yourselves, who give generously, who forgive without needing an apology, who love deeply and without judgment. I hope that you treat the people around you with respect and compassion, but even if it’s a struggle, and even if you disregard this philosophy that to love is good, I will still love you. You can be selfish bitches, and you can tear down everyone around you, and you can call my own love defunct, but I will still love you. Please try not to be heinous bitches, though.
I will love you always. If you lie. If you cheat. If you kill. If you molest. Please, please, please never do those things. But if you do. I will still love you.
I will still love you because you are my sisters. Because you are a part of my family. Because though we don’t survive on the same blood we bear the same name. Because somebody has to love you, and it’s just so convenient that I feel naturally inclined to anyway.
Girls, I am confident that you will become strong, smart, compassionate women. But I will love you even if you aren’t.
Just so you know.
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