SheFallsSoftly

Let me tell you a story.

In eighth grade, when I was still young, impressionable, and highly awkward, I sat next to a boy named Rob in art class. He was, and I suppose even now is, the portrait of the boy I desire and wish to date. A brilliant artist, incredibly talented, with an undernurtured sense of motivation. Self aware, intelligent, witty, passionate, and deep, and with a bite of danger. Rob, you see, was a skater boy and not just any skater boy, but a stoner skater boy. He’d talk to me while we worked, explaining how if he’d just try he could do anything, but he didn’t care enough, how he knew if he wouldn’t do drugs he’d be so much more talented. I would swoon. I would imagine that maybe I could change him. Back then, though, I wasn’t my forward and outgoing self and I certainly wasn’t willing to ask him on a date, and as such my swoonings never amounted to anything.

But what if they had?

I’d probably be an entirely different person, and most likely would have been pulled into the wrong group of friends, done drugs, became an unmotivated little soul as well. I’d probably be relaxed and easy going, less socially awkward, but I wouldn’t be going to college across the country, I bet. I wouldn’t have a full ride scholarship. I might not have met Tony, or Zack, I might not have become my little emotionally distraught self. Not in the same way, at least. Maybe I’d still be an artist, and I never would have focused on my writing. Maybe my little sister would have learned from my mistakes. Maybe she would have followed in my footsteps.

Sometimes I let these hugely important moments of self definition pass me by and I don’t recognize them until years later, sometimes I don’t recognize them at all. It’s 3 AM where I am right now, and I’m thinking that what you know of me would not exist if I would have known then to smile and act flirtatiously.

Would it have been a big loss?

I think so.

I like who I am… and I’m going to start acting like it.

The defining characteristic of this week has been the sheer overature of time constraints and activities needing to be done… All of this stress is causing me to dream more often, and the dreams are more and more disturbing. I imagine that what causes this is something like the following;

Like all animals, Casey creates waste must be released from her body in order for her to live. Trees do this by releasing oxygen, aerobic respirators by releasing carbon dioxide, and so on. Casey generates extra "emo" in everyday life that must be released into her journal or some other mechanism. When she doesn’t find the time to release this emo, she suffers from what is formally known as emo obstruction. This is a backup of emo waste that has lodged itself into Casey’s subconcious that causes disturbing and over-emotive dreams which trouble her ability to properly rest. This is supposed to trigger late night emo-release via panicked phone calls and journal entries, however this may not always work. Emo is a toxic substance, and can be deadly when left in the body for too long of a period.

Next week, I’ll draw diagrams.

"Half the world and the broken sea lie between you and me"-Sarah Teasdale, Sleepless

So I overstimate the distance. We’ll call it poetic hyperbole.

I’ve been listening to Death Cab for Cutie pretty much nonstop for the last 3 weeks… this isn’t so boring as one might assume, as I have five full CDs which I shuffle through. The music is incredibly apt to describe my life.

My older sister makes fun of me a lot, because she and I are so different. Robyn’s always had some problems with focusing in school, never really cared enough. She’s been struggling, recently, trying to decide what to do for a living. Even at her current job, she never stays in one place very long. She is, however, dating a boy that she’s completely in love with and will likely be with for many years to come. She’s got the relationship thing under control. I, on the other hand, have always been spectacularly able to devote myself to school. I can work one completely atrocious job and feel completely contented in it. Relationships, however have always been very turbulent in my life. I’ve never really been able to commit to the person I was with fully, whether it be by my own fault or theirs. I never quite get over the last before moving on to the next. Maybe it will take me more time before I can become the sort of person who settles down, maybe I’ve just been waiting for the correct set of circumstances. My big fear is that I’m not that sort of person… but I have trouble believing this.

Although it is not  facebook-official, I’m dating the afore mentioned Chris Allen now. I’m pleased with this, as well as a little mixed up. My gut’s telling me to just suck it up, be honest, and do what makes me happy. I think that sounds like a rather good plan.

I can’t let things that are done and over affect things that are happening now.

Who I am is who I allow myself to be, and no one else. I am not the sort to dwell. I am, however, the sort to commit myself fully and always give my all.

On another note, Latin is going nicely. Slightly more difficult than I would have hoped, but I’ll still likely get an A. Livy is inordinately boring though… Hopefully Catullus will be more interesting.

Work is also going well. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a pretty good waitress now. Not great, but pretty good. I keep drinks full, I don’t drop things, I try hard and smile… The actually "knowing things" section of the job will come with time.

You are
Summer days
Tire swing trees,
Barefoot, licking
Dripping dreamsicles
Hose drinking,
Cloud gazing–
No worrying
No thoughts of
sunburn, wrinkles,
global warming, just hot
And happy
Drenched wet from the hose
In the warm–
You are all of this
All wrapped up in the light
of the morning, and the makeshift skin that is the sheets,
in the single
kiss and smile and touch
You give me and
I do not fear.

My life is so terribly uninteresting… Don’t think that I don’t know that the vast majority of you come here just waiting for me to say something insane. It’s like Nascar–not worth watching unless some good redneck needs a can opener to get out of his car.

These days are all about easily sliding from one role to the next, class, work, prospective girlfriend… All of these parts we play so we don’t have to face the terrifying choices that are ahead of us. This constant denial of choices, and claiming of roles, serves only to bring me further from myself. I make choices I hate, tell myself they are inevitable and justified, and never quite move past that feeling that I’m behaving some way that I don’t approve.

Many evenings with a certain Chris Allen recently… terribly enjoyable times, much intellectualism and  cuddling abounds in our hours together.

My summer plans have changed, instead of going to New Mexico to see my aunts and uncles, I’ll be going to Las Vegas to see my sisters. Vegas doesn’t feel like home, and that’s what  I like about it.

Nothing ever comes out just right, in the math of the universe… The numbers are just fuzzy enough that while we try to round them to perfect, they’re a few billionths off…. in that 2+2=4.000000…6 kind of way. This is what I am blaming for the fact that as far as affection in my life is concerned, no one has the appropriate amount of it. Everyone is burdened with too much or too little.

He’ll be surprised when he figures out that I have no more idea what’s going on than he does. Just a lot more confidence, and a healthy dose of cynicism.

I have a theory. Love is like mexican food. It’s better, but harder to get when the person giving it to you speaks another language. In fact, it’s best when you leave the country for it. There are essentially five ingredients, put together in different orders and called by different names. You never really want to know what it is before you get it. It can give you an outrageous stomach ache. It looks a lot worse than it really is. It’s messy. Most of it is canned or jarred, but it’s better fresh. The sketchier it is, the better. You can get it cheap, and you can get it expensive, and all that changes is your state of mind about it. Some need it milder than others. It’s best with a margarita. If you coat it in cheese, anything looks delicious. And Patrick hates it…. well not so much on the last one. But you get the point. There is indeed a case to be made for these similarities.

There is wind here, and sunlight, and trees… Any place so beautiful could not be such a bad place to live. Norman is gracefully lovely, in its small city sort of way, with the barely hidden disdain the residents have for the college students. I like it here, I’m happy all in all. Is this the place I want to be for the next five years?

I ask myself that question and I can’t imagine myself wanting to be anywhere, geographically speaking, in five years. There are little romantics wanderings that tell me that five years from this moment I should be cleaning up from the post-church lunch my family ate… But I suppose that’s a bit further down the line than five years.

What do I want to do with my life?
Live well.

But how?
Success, family, happiness.

But HOW?
Love, dedication, luck.

These are the sort of perfectly logical but evasive answers I give myself when trying to plan for my future. I don’t want to become a lawyer for women’s agencies, I think… I’m too passionate. Work should be sterile, challenging but not gripping.

Family should be flour flying in the air from pancake batter messy, stories and kisses goodnight warm, waking up next to someone you love soft, and I could die for you passionate.

I don’t need a job I love, just something that will pay the bills and keep me interested. I want to be a lawyer, this much I know, but where? Of what sort?

This summer, I realized how much I love to learn language. Any language, every language, and I feel sad because I want to take German, Italian, Russian, French, Spanish, and anything else I can get my hands on… I want to spend all of my time in grammar, translation, teasing out the meaning… I love to learn about feminism and philosophy, it’s true, but I don’t want to advocate women’s rights like I want to see every single part of the world, express every feeling in every language that can be used to express.

Where do I want to learn to be a lawyer? At OU? That would be free, which would be very nice… But there are so many other schools that I think I could get into and might look so much better.

My dream schools, at this point are University of Michigan, Oxford, and Cambridge. I’m sure next year I’ll apply to a whole slew of schools, Harvard Law, and Chicago U, and Yale, and Princeton… I’m sure that I’ll get accepted to one or two. Where do I want to be in 5 years? I have no idea.

I know that this summer, this city is too much for me… I miss my sisters, and my mommy, and all my aunts and uncles. I miss the feeling of Las Vegas, the resounding anonymity. Being in a city geared toured tourism is a constant reminder that we are always coming and going, nothing is ever permanent. Norman has gotten so heavy with meaning for me, I take it all too seriously it feels terribly and utterly real and not at all transient. I need to escape for a week, be with people I love and who love me back unconditionally. I need to see Elaine, Becca, Liz, Shari…

Being here has gotten so bad for me, so far from self knowledge and so caught up in the feeling of being free. Behaving as the wind that flees, not the water that reflects.

Do you ever wonder if the wind gets tired of running and wants to stop, just to look?

Cloudy days, covered windows, soft white light pouring through brazenly onto white walls, white sheets, white skin… Everything is warm and soft, I lie here all day and wonder if there is any better way to spend my time. Wonder if it would be so bad to live a life like this, quiet, warm, slow… Venturing into the world only for necessities and touch. Only for necessities. I wonder why I push so hard for motion, for action, for movement, for appointments and business and success… These lazy days of summer are showing me a part of myself that if I’ve seen I don’t remember. The part of me that spends two hours watching your chest rise and fall, feeling the soft purrs of the cat. The part of me that reads for hours, without fervor, without pushing, without trying to find any deeper meaning. The part of me that wants instrumental music and light that doesn’t understand the word "no," light that comes in spite of clouds and curtains. The part of me that breathes.

Maybe it’s not that you’re making it too difficult, the problem is you’re making it too easy. Too much face value… too obvious. No hidden agendas, no plans, no yearning, or waiting, or secrets.

Maybe I’m just scared because all of these lies are like curtains that I keep pulling tight and you just don’t listen when I say no. White light pouring onto white walls, white sheets, white skin.

Imagine what it would be like if I just let this be easy…

But hey, that’s really not my style. My style? More emo, panicked, obsessive compulsive and borderline. Ironic, literal, literal, double entendre–in that order.

I saw Patrick today… he insists that I should stop being so emo. Imagine if someone said that to Virginia Woolf, or Anne Sexton. There’s no need to bring up the fact that both of these women committed suicide… In the end, no one cares how you die, it’s what you produce when you’re living. Regardless, I’ll write what I wish here and feel as I feel. No one’s being forced to read it, or to live with my emotions. I’m happy as I am.

When I went to see him I’m relatively certain that I had some sort of question to ask him, however I lose my tongue around him, somehow… And my will to defend authors, music, art, philosophy, and pretty much anything else including myself. I don’t really know what I wanted or needed to hear from him other than a good, strong, "YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO THESE QUESTIONS." And I do… The problem is, I have a large collection of friends contradicting me. Learning quickly that good company doesn’t necessarily equate to good advice, though. In the end I’ll do what I wish, and what the other party of this whole matter wishes, despite all of this worrying and questioning and naming.

I’m feeling self assertive tonight… Perhaps it’s my antithesis to the acquiescence a few nights ago… Even though that was really good.

I think such interesting and useless things sometimes. When talking to Billy last night, he told me that he had trouble connecting the interconnections in history such as those between Napoleon and Jefferson. The issue is not realizing that they existed and when so much as that they interacted. Imagine if someone were to read all of these blogs and try to put together a cohesive history of the last few weeks of my life? All of these individuals linking me and giving the links clever little titles. Perhaps all this journal is is my side of the story, my stake in the futures perception of me. After all, to be is to be perceived.

Sunday night was a good time of 5 hours of pool at Slick Willy’s, where I was but an independent variable as opposed to Billy’s constant. I have proved that I have absolutely no luck, particularly when there is pressure, by magically getting one of the balls into the hole exactly when it was least appropriate. There’s the rub. I should not be allowed to handle a pool cue when sleepy, as I am wont to do violent and generally inappropriate things. Billy should not be allowed to talk at night, as he is wont to forget everything he says even though it was probably pretty important. How convenient.

C-span raises cholesterol levels. I  love it anyway.

The West Wing reminds me of Sports Night, which makes me happy, as Sports Night filled the void left in my life when I finally finished watching NewsRadio. I remember waking up at 3 am to watch the reruns on Comedy Central.

Explosions in the Sky is the best thing to happen to my playlist since I ripped everything William had by Bowie.

My new room is beautiful, and you should all come by and see it.

Enjoying Firefly… next I’ll probably be reading Kurt Vonnegut and liking it. Losing my soul, I tell you.

How is it that the more I look forward to an evening, the less likely it is to actually come to fruition? One way or another, I needed sleep after the last few weeks and I couldn’t wait for that evening to finally ripen. Perhaps fruit was a bad choice of metaphor.

I’m having some major concerns about my faith recently… It seems like the more I think about it the less I feel I can really believe. The problem is, I want to so badly. It’s hard to imagine the world being created ex nihilo, but it’s also hard to imagine (for obvious reasons) a being beyond our comprehension that exists "around" us if you will. The more I think about church the more it feels like a big round of groupthink. The more I think about prayer the sillier it seems that anyone is listening. The common attitude of those I know concerning God is that one must have faith, and that even if there is no God a little faith won’t hurt anything in the end. How very superstitious… I want to believe, desperately, and so much of me does… It’s just so hard to find a good reason to justify those things.

Also, I haven’t written any poetry in entirely too long.. This is likely due to the current "not quite comfortable enough to formulate real imagery to describe it" status of my quasi-relationship, as well as the extreme amount of busy-ness, and my completely lack of motivation to deal with the past.

The biggest problem is when you start telling lies and you don’t even know what is true yet… Then you pretty much lose any chance of ever figuring it out.

The score is currently: Sleep 3 : Casey 0

Feeling uncomfortably calm.. just waiting for something to happen.

You know it has been a long week when I don’t have the energy to over analyze the things you say… I’ve been learning the art of just letting it go. It’s odd but I’m beginning to trust that if it really mattered, you’d probably tell. Now you just need to learn how to broach statements without feeling confrontational.

I had intended at some point, to give a good long discourse on nomenclature and its importance or lack thereof, however I’ve come to the conclusion that if I’m happy and the object without-name is making me happy then I ought to just calm down and take it as it comes.

On another note, I’m really not liking the status of this entire McHugh issue right now. A desire to be the hero in a situation you know nothing about has never looked more childish. If you don’t want me to feel like I have to justify my actions, why put me on the defensive?

What I want to know is this–is it more moral to break a promise or to lie?

I can’t past-tense deny comment. All I can do is tell the truth, or keep lying. Break a promise, or be honest…

What I want to know is why I’m stuck feeling like the criminal here, like I’m the one that should be apologizing for what happened.

I walk all night long
Hidden beneath my thick wool jacket
From the rain
And your eyes.
If I could bleed, or sleep–
Maybe then this restless ever waking hopeless
Feeling
Maybe this solution in my veins, so meaningless
Might drain through a nightmare’s seive…
Maybe then I might live. ("Do Not Resuscitate")

I wish I could be afraid of something simple right now. The normal insecurities that I am used to, that he won’t like me or that I’ve alienated him. I can get over boys, that’s easy. I can’t get over this restless ever-waking hopeless feeling, this growing inability to forget the past as I have before. If it could be as simple as a relationship that won’t work because of my past and my only just now blossoming ability to deal with it, that would be simple. This is far more complex, this is the surmounting inability to ignore reality. This is meeting face to face with the role I played as object and my anger and dread and humiliation in dealing with that.

It’s easy to be angry at her. It’s easy to be aloof about him. It’s easy to blame myself entirely and make excuses and do what’s easiest. It’s easy to let this humiliation make me run again.

The problem is, I know what’s right, and it’s not going to be easy.