9:27 p.m. - 04/08/03
*i : promise :: i'll believe ::: you this time:
So, that letter - a week and a day ago - it shouldn't have said what it did. It should have said something much more like, "Of course, you are brilliant, we love you, we not only want you to come, we want you to stay." And that's what I need to remember right now, I think. I need to remember that I deserved to get in, that they made a mistake, that I am worth - and will always have good love. I really do think I knew that when I received the letter, but since that session the day after, I've been feeling more and more "rejected." And it's hard to know maybe I would have gotten out of that trap fairly unscathed, if the doctor hadn't misinterpreted my position so fully...but maybe I wouldn't have, and either way, that's not what happened. I'm a teensy bit angry at him for making it hurt this way. And a teensy bit grateful to the WB for rerunning the episode of Gilmore Girls where Paris (the queen of student perfectionists) gets rejected by Harvard. I only watched the end of it (as I just saw the first airing, say, two weeks ago), but listening to her talk at the end, now that I'm in her spot somewhat, brought all the emotion up to a tangible level, which I think I needed. I guess I'm glad for that, glad for pain that makes me weepy and needy and recovery-oriented replacing pain that makes me intense and hopeless and searching for escape. After last week, I will entirely sign on to cry until my face is pale and flushed, to talk with myself, to stare into my own eyes and say what I need to be told. I will completely sign on to being cliche, if it means surviving this, if it means feeling more alive, just because I'm feeling.
I wish I could explain to those people who are in the pain of illness and abuse how different the pain of life is. It's magic, somehow. Feeling it means accessing the pain, and somehow that manages to heal said pain. I wish I could remember that, in all the atoms of me, when I face the non-life pains. But we've got to admit it's getting better...
The doc and I talked a lot today about school- graduation, Neverland, etc. I joked a lot and was actually audible, in large part because it wasn't the biggest pain on my list, and also, I was pushing myself not to fall asleep (after a night of the opposite) so I was a little goofy. I told him about the invitation to see my friends in their spring musical, and to go to graduation - the only commencement ceremony that would have meaning for me. Going to commencement at the school here would just feel like a social anxiety hurdle. There's no history in those buildings; the faces and hands are unfamiliar.
On the other end, I told the doc that if I went to the Neverland ceremony, and managed to be as close to certain faculty members as would be necessary to shake their hands, that's probably not the verb I'd end up illustrating. As for the musical, there's more pain tied around that for me (minus the reality that I would definitely run into all evil faculty members at commencement) because I spent so much time being sick on that stage, and then away from it because of my sickness. I told him the only way I can imagine going would be with a friend who has never seen N*land, who would go in entirely as my ally, and (just by their presence) ensure that I remain who I am now, without reverting back into who I was then, or trying to prove who I wasn't them, or the worth of who I am now, etc. It would be different if I could go back looking all snazzy hanging onto someone's arm, as that someone would be a sign that I moved on; I didn't just disappear. I guess it would still be really difficult, but I feel like I could do it then. At this point, though I don't have that person, and I don't feel like trekking into such a risky venture. I just realized now (after going through old address books and letters from when I went homebound) that one of my main motivations for going - to make contact with those people that I regret not knowing better and would like to try and hold onto a bit more - can entirely be solved by a N*land phonebook...which we're sure to have, considering that my dad still has his life centered around the place. There are some people that I need to just understand I'll never know so well, but there are some I had enough of a relation started with to see if there's any interest in building further. The hard part is that some of those mysterious attachments I described in an earlier entry (which two people I really admire could relate to...wow) are in the former let-it-be category, and part of me wants to run to Neverland, grab them by the shoulders and say, "I was totally in love with you!" ...Wow, impulsive. That'd be a character change.
I'm just imagining the looks they would give me, the complete disbelief, and my own adrenaline rush at having done something so entirely unlike what I will end up doing, after I consider the matter rationally. On that note, I've been wondering what will happen to me when I see Rachel again in NYC. Or Ruth. I wonder what crazy feelings will stir up, which is entirely separate from the excitement/ anxiety around the crazy feelings sure to be stirred up by all the cool people who are likely to show up... Whee. From processed words to voices and to touch.
That's very similar to the transition I want to make in my actual life. I'm thinking again about being in school and hearing that I had to be, had to be, had to be a writer. I'm remembering those oh-so-rare moments, when I'd be talking or listening to someone in a moment of not-so-much peace, and they'd tell me I should be a teacher or a guidance counselor or a therapist. I wanted to throw my arms around them every time because it was such a higher compliment to me. I know I downplay the writing, but to be told that I'm a good being, a good friend, a good energy, a good listener, a kind and sincere and healing person...how much better is that? So I know what I want to do with my life now. I just have no idea where what I want to do is, or what the steps are to living it. I want to help people tell their stories, specifically people who haven't been able to do so. That was the main gift I got at Rogers (odd, isn't it, that all I did growing up was tell stories, and to be taught how to speak up about and feel secure in my own reality, to tell my own story, was such a foreign and fulfilling gift?) and that's what I want to do. This whole caged thing has been a bit of a reminder also. When people send entries, I want to ask them so many things, and I sincerely want to know, but I also want the experience of being told whatever it is people want to tell. It has me thinking about all the essays I helped my classmates write, all the auditions for which I helped my friends prepare, all the time that I stayed with them, giving the smallest hints and the slightest questions, and watching them start speeding in their right direction. It's like people have books in their laps, and the books are the right book, the very right book, the book they absolutely need, but they've never been told how to open one, or how to process what they see. So I very simply, very gently, help them open the book, and it's still their story and their life and what they wanted; I just help them access that.
Those are the happiest fucking moments of my life, and I mean it.
And if along that road, I happen to do cool things like author the best quote ever, what the hey? It's not that I dislike writing by any means (go away mom go away go away go away)...it's simply not in the same stratosphere as knowing and speaking and living and listening are. And I have to come up with a word for that, simply so the two my mom uses will leave my head. She's being a bit annoying; for instance, she just crouched next to me (I mean on top of me, so close she hit the chair) talking on a cell phone and rooting through papers, completely invading my space. (This after shutting me up in a room for over 2 hours because she taught a class here tonight, and let it run 45 minutes late. And after my dad had come home to entirely take over the room I was locked up in, in less than one minute's time.) But I no longer care about that because about 45 minutes have passed since I started this paragraph, and apparently, what was good of the show is even better, and what was bad is coming into place. Rock. I wouldn't mind having to be proud of what it ends up being. I'm so early in the development, and it all goes so far from me...but I wouldn't mind being able to tie myself into that product, and say, yes this is also my piece.
Not to mention how cool it is when strange people in their twenties come up to you, surprise-eyed and entirely enthused. The joy of being precocious. Though I'm almost a strange twenty-something myself at this point. Weird...
lovlles-
chord
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