Last night I had a dream where I was at some sort of summer camp and all the lesbians I've ever known were outside playing/having sex/joking around/whatever in the water trough/pool area outside. I felt hurt, embarrassed, left out. My friend Lauren was with them even though she's always been straight and since we were the closest, I joked with her first, calling across the courtyard.
"Lauren, what the hell?" I tried to laugh. "Did you think I wasn't cool enough to invite or something?"
She looked at the girl next to her and then smiled at me, "We thought you were busy otherwise we totally would have invited you." She swam to the edge of the pool near me and I knelt down in front of her. I could feel them, all of them, staring at us while their hands skimmed along skin under the water.
"I can handle it," I assured Lauren, and then out of desperation and anxiety and fear I grabbed her and kissed her quickly. I felt nauseated. I wasn't attracted to her and everyone knew it. She was my friend, my good friend, and instead of making myself fit in I was just floundering further, drowning in the sea of manipulative games and subcultures and titles. Lauren looked at me - angrily, harshly, and I tried to backtrack. "Look, this doesn't mean you're gay or that I like you, I just-" I tried to explain that I wanted to prove myself but she cut my off.
"I don't know what you take me for," I'd never heard her so cold and harsh, "but I'm not gay. And if I were, I'd definitely go for the pretty femmes." I recoiled. Which you're not was implied in her sentence. I'd never been attached to the title of femme, but the way she tore it from me left me reeling - empty handed and wanting to cry.
I feel this a lot. I feel this all the time. Constantly defending and proving and feeling like my sexuality is not broadcast clearly enough. Constantly feeling as though "lesbian" is an exclusive club to which I am not invited or wanted. Constantly aggravated because I'm subjected to male gaze and overtures while easily passed over by lesbians and dismissed as less than or an outsider.
Maybe I'm not femme, but Femme Invisibilty seems to apply to me so easily.
I understand that it is my own shortcomings and brainwashings and past manipulations that have given me this not enough complex, but just because I know that doesn't make it go away. It's a trend in all my writings - not enough - and I'm trying so hard to tamp that down but then it rears up in dreams like this and I know it's still plaguing me.
Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts
Jan 28, 2013
Nov 4, 2012
Disasters
This post has been in my head for days, but I haven't been able to piece it together. The only reason I can do so now is because I'm a procrastinator and avoiding something else.
When something like Sandy hits on the opposite side of the country, I feel useless. And it happens every few years, like with the Aurora massacre, Japan, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings and all of these horrible things that happen in other places where I'm not and can't help.
I mean, I do what I can, I donate and try to be active and informed but it never feels like enough. I'm never doing enough. I didn't go to Haiti to rebuild houses, and I wasn't in the search and rescue after the tsunami in Japan. I'm not a firefighter or an EMT and I want to do more than take five seconds to donate and then live my happy little life where I try to make kids succeed in school and bask in the sunshine as long as it lasts. I'm living the California dream and it's times like these, when my countrymen are starving, trying to rebuild, have gone without power or clean water, that my life feels so gross.
It's almost like survivor's guilt. But what else can you do when you're not supposed to donate items; when you live on the other side of the world? I can't just pack up my life every time a disaster strikes, although I'd like to.
How do you help? How can I?
When something like Sandy hits on the opposite side of the country, I feel useless. And it happens every few years, like with the Aurora massacre, Japan, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings and all of these horrible things that happen in other places where I'm not and can't help.
I mean, I do what I can, I donate and try to be active and informed but it never feels like enough. I'm never doing enough. I didn't go to Haiti to rebuild houses, and I wasn't in the search and rescue after the tsunami in Japan. I'm not a firefighter or an EMT and I want to do more than take five seconds to donate and then live my happy little life where I try to make kids succeed in school and bask in the sunshine as long as it lasts. I'm living the California dream and it's times like these, when my countrymen are starving, trying to rebuild, have gone without power or clean water, that my life feels so gross.
It's almost like survivor's guilt. But what else can you do when you're not supposed to donate items; when you live on the other side of the world? I can't just pack up my life every time a disaster strikes, although I'd like to.
How do you help? How can I?
Day 13 Forgiveness
30 Day Letter Challenge
Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you
I guess we're back to midnight posts. Who the hell came up with these? I feel like I'm in therapy.
Okay, so remember that roommate I was half in love with my first year of college? Right before the summer everything I knew came crashing down? I was a bitch to her. On her birthday. Not my finest moment.
She'd been chasing after this guy and I didn't want them to get together (I really liked her) so after a few rounds of some drinking game involving vodka, our close friend from out of town called and this really hilarious, loud, drunk guy put her on speakerphone. She was talking to everyone and saying happy birthday, and the guy my roommate was crushing on said something. That prompted loud drunk guy to introduce him as my roommate's new boyfriend as of the last few weeks.
I was drunk - I was hurt. It was her birthday, so I tried not to make a scene and let myself out the front door and walked around the block. I slid down the side of a car and began to cry. One of our friends, Mike - this really sweet, quiet guy, had followed me outside and sat down next to me. I bawled, cursing my roommate, calling her horrible things because she hadn't even had the decency to tell me. She was sneaking around with him because she didn't trust me, didn't consider me a friend. The ultimate betrayal.
Yeah, I can over dramatic when I'm trashed.
Anyway, she had followed me out to apologize and heard all the awful things I said about her on her birthday, so when I tried to make amends she was having none of it. We've never spoken again.
She's getting married now, to some other guy. I'm sad that I lost a great friend over something so idiotic. I wish I would've kept my mouth shut. I wish she could forgive me.
Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you
I guess we're back to midnight posts. Who the hell came up with these? I feel like I'm in therapy.
Okay, so remember that roommate I was half in love with my first year of college? Right before the summer everything I knew came crashing down? I was a bitch to her. On her birthday. Not my finest moment.
She'd been chasing after this guy and I didn't want them to get together (I really liked her) so after a few rounds of some drinking game involving vodka, our close friend from out of town called and this really hilarious, loud, drunk guy put her on speakerphone. She was talking to everyone and saying happy birthday, and the guy my roommate was crushing on said something. That prompted loud drunk guy to introduce him as my roommate's new boyfriend as of the last few weeks.
I was drunk - I was hurt. It was her birthday, so I tried not to make a scene and let myself out the front door and walked around the block. I slid down the side of a car and began to cry. One of our friends, Mike - this really sweet, quiet guy, had followed me outside and sat down next to me. I bawled, cursing my roommate, calling her horrible things because she hadn't even had the decency to tell me. She was sneaking around with him because she didn't trust me, didn't consider me a friend. The ultimate betrayal.
Yeah, I can over dramatic when I'm trashed.
Anyway, she had followed me out to apologize and heard all the awful things I said about her on her birthday, so when I tried to make amends she was having none of it. We've never spoken again.
She's getting married now, to some other guy. I'm sad that I lost a great friend over something so idiotic. I wish I would've kept my mouth shut. I wish she could forgive me.
Dec 31, 2009
Guilt/Killing
While I'm excited that everyone wants to hear about my trip, and I promise I will write about it, this has to come first.
I always joke around with my mother that I don't feel guilt. To some extent, I don't. She feels guilty about all the little things, guilt that she's not at work, guilt that she's not at home, guilt that her husband is dying and she wishes it would happen faster.
Maybe the last one is something I feel and project onto her. But I don't guilty about things like that, don't feel guilty that I don't care if my father lives or dies.
My father has a disease. He stopped taking the medication that doctors prescribed because it wasn't working, and he thought they were trying to kill him (paranoia is a side effect). Now he takes alternative medicine, and it's not helping. He is withering away.
I came home from a perfectly wonderful lunch at a lavish old castle with two fabulous old hens, an aunt, and my cousin (whom I have always considered as a brother codename:ladybug), to find a family visiting with my father. The mother is not ill, but her grown daughter has chronic pain, and her husband has the same illness as my father.
I listen quietly, fiddling with cans and cupboards in the background as he paints the future for this couple. A future where neither of them are in pain, where both can walk, run, jump and play like normal people.
And I feel guilt. I feel guilt as he convinces these people of the impossible. Feel guilt as he sits there in his chair, ashen, withering, and shriveled, and leads this couple to their deaths. In my head, I want to arrest him for murder. For surely, if her husband stops taking his medication he will deteriorate and die.
As I they say their goodbyes, I walk the nice family to their car and pull the husband aside, "The medication works. My father has gone downhill so quickly since he stopped. Try the silver as well, try it, but don't stop the injections so long as you want to live." I can see his eyes darken as he takes in what I say, measures the weight and gravity in his head. He nods and looks at his wife, sitting in the car waiting, when he looks back at me I recognize his wan smile as one I've seen in the mirror too many times, and I know he won't stop the injections. Yet even as I get the mail and walk back into the house, the guilt knots in my stomach, and behind my eyes, I see the lovely husband and wife rot and decay.
I always joke around with my mother that I don't feel guilt. To some extent, I don't. She feels guilty about all the little things, guilt that she's not at work, guilt that she's not at home, guilt that her husband is dying and she wishes it would happen faster.
Maybe the last one is something I feel and project onto her. But I don't guilty about things like that, don't feel guilty that I don't care if my father lives or dies.
My father has a disease. He stopped taking the medication that doctors prescribed because it wasn't working, and he thought they were trying to kill him (paranoia is a side effect). Now he takes alternative medicine, and it's not helping. He is withering away.
I came home from a perfectly wonderful lunch at a lavish old castle with two fabulous old hens, an aunt, and my cousin (whom I have always considered as a brother codename:ladybug), to find a family visiting with my father. The mother is not ill, but her grown daughter has chronic pain, and her husband has the same illness as my father.
I listen quietly, fiddling with cans and cupboards in the background as he paints the future for this couple. A future where neither of them are in pain, where both can walk, run, jump and play like normal people.
And I feel guilt. I feel guilt as he convinces these people of the impossible. Feel guilt as he sits there in his chair, ashen, withering, and shriveled, and leads this couple to their deaths. In my head, I want to arrest him for murder. For surely, if her husband stops taking his medication he will deteriorate and die.
As I they say their goodbyes, I walk the nice family to their car and pull the husband aside, "The medication works. My father has gone downhill so quickly since he stopped. Try the silver as well, try it, but don't stop the injections so long as you want to live." I can see his eyes darken as he takes in what I say, measures the weight and gravity in his head. He nods and looks at his wife, sitting in the car waiting, when he looks back at me I recognize his wan smile as one I've seen in the mirror too many times, and I know he won't stop the injections. Yet even as I get the mail and walk back into the house, the guilt knots in my stomach, and behind my eyes, I see the lovely husband and wife rot and decay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)