My mom repeatedly tells me to not post my political views online, as they could impede me from acquiring a job hopefully sometime in the near future. While I understand exactly why that's the case, I hate why that is. In the world we live in, if you're a different political alignment, you may as well be a lesser species to the point of view of the other side. The fact that we have to hide our political views in the first place is an indicator of how bad the world is. If we're so intent on making this country better, shouldn't we be working together with the people from the other side? Shouldn't we be compromising?
And now I'll laugh. Politics has never been about making stuff better, not for a long time. It's all been a matter of us being better than them and all that stuff we think it is. Politics is about our respective side being awesome. Right now, the United States is....sorry, WAS in political gridlock. The democrats were blocking the republicans at every turn, and vice versa, and suddenly the platform of both parties was "we're not the other guys, therefore we're better"
I could go on with this, but I'm fairly certain you get the gist of what people have been thinking for a while: politics is fucked up, and the only way to change it is to be a politician, and we all know how difficult it is to do that. Right, Mr. Byrd?
The main thing that motivated this blog post was the news that people have been killing themselves as a result of Trump winning the presidency. The problem with this is now that an anti-LGBT president is in office, people all over the country think it's okay to bully said group. These homophobes assholes believe that they have power over the LGBT's of America, and that's not true.
AFTERTHOUGHT: you could just make LGBT-ness a religion, then it would be protected by the first amendment, like polygamy with the Mormons. Is that possible?
While there are some things that will most certainly change for the time being (like sexually active women being advised to get IUD's now before Pence fucks over Planned Parenthood, that's a time-sensitive certainty), the one thing that will not change is the civil rights movement for women, LGBT, minorities, and everyone else whose rights have been repressed for god knows how long. In 4 years, Trump will be elected out of office (I am quite confident in this, given what Trump has planned for America). There was a time in our childhood when 4 years meant forever, but in this day and age, our perception has been sped up to the point where a single day goes by in a blink, and a week is over before we know it.
The civil rights movement, obviously, has got several kicks in the ass before. Just because this is a big one does not mean that it's over.
This is for everyone who's LGBT, just because Trump is president doesn't mean that you're any less important. You're on the verge of being recognized by society for who you are, and stopping your fight now is just wrong. Hold your heads high, look into the eyes of everyone who says "just go and kill yourself", and say, "No."
Keep fighting. Even if you think you're not going to win, even if the odds are against you, keep fighting.
Like drugs, music can be an upper, a downer, or a hallucinogen.
My choice in music is somewhat arbitrary, but rarely does it not fit with how I feel about the subject I write about. I can either feel happy or sad about a certain thing, and I guess, even though I have no understanding of it, I'm sad about this.
Human beings are interesting. If life were a race between many other species in the universe, we wouldn't content ourselves with a single human being representing us all crossing the finish line. We human beings are apt to challenge ourselves, try to not take the easier path, making ourselves better in the process.
Instead of allowing one human being to cross the finish line, we have the gall to say, "not one, all", and count our victory not with a single hand, but when our entire body crosses the finish line. That, in it's simplest form (or broadest, depending on how you look at it), is empathy.
The perfect metaphor for the human race right now
Many of my friends dwell on the internet, and I find the internet a lot more interesting way of finding friends. On the internet, you don't have to walk up to someone and initiate a conversation. On the internet, you can bypass the anxiety simply by opening a chat window and saying "hi". Depending on the person, you will most often get a reply, and you can get to know each other. You can be decisive in what you say, more so than in real life, as you can take a moment to think of what to say without an awkward silence dwelling in between. Life on the internet is simple: interact, exchange information, feel a sense of belonging with those you know will support you (they just happen to live in another state).
The one thing I think I've learned from the internet is that anyone can suffer. Unlike in Ratatouille, this means both that anyone can suffer, and someone who suffers can come from anywhere. Suffering is different from a bad day. Suffering is something that makes you doubt your journey, whether this journey is life or a chosen endeavor of their own, the principle is the same.
This is where the will to survive comes in.
There's something about people that never fails to inspire: when someone who's broken beyond measure, knocked onto the ground by forces beyond their control, takes a deep breath and gets back up. Life gives us a beating sometimes, but we can't simply lie down and take it. We have to stand up, look life in the eyes, and THEN take it.
People disagree with this, as naturally they do. I sometimes feel a disconnect between myself and the rest of the human race, as if I am not one of them, not a person like them, but a person like me. I don't know what's beautiful to other people, I don't know what's offensive to other people, I don't know if I am some kind of superhuman build to endure more than your standard person. To put it bluntly, I don't know the limits of other people. I try my best, but ultimately, at the end of every day, I feel like an outsider among the human race.
I live by a standard code of honor: keep fighting, live by your own achievements, try your hardest not to hurt people, don't stop fighting (fighting, in this instance, doesn't have to mean kicking ass; for some it can be as simple as living their life one day at a time). My stubborn devotion to these simple rules have kept me alive, kept me from thinking suicidal thoughts, kept me fighting. There's a quote from the new The Day The Earth Stood Still that I always took to heart:
"Well that's where we are. You say we're on the brink of destruction and you're right. But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don't take it from us. We are close to an answer"
This is also in Stargate with the rite of Mal'Sharan, where one is willingly brought to the edge of death in order to find their true self. In the end, we're dangling off a cliff, scared out of our mind, and we have two choices: evolve, change for the better, become the better version of ourselves, or die. For some reason, I'm obsessed with this theme of survival, I'm told it's because of my being smarter than my surroundings, which I still haven't puzzled out yet.
I guess you could say that sci-fi vices are deeply ingrained into my personality, but sci-fi is more realistic than you'd realize. It's with sci-fi that we tell stories in a different setting to analyze them from a different point of view, like with Buffy TVS's "high school demons" metaphors and that Star Trek episode about abortion. It's why I enjoy it, because a shift in perspective is exactly what one needs to do in order to survive.
I like to think of myself as a combined Romantic and Nihilist. On some days, everything means something, or nothing means anything. When it comes to people, I romanticize them too easily. The Nihilist part of me says they're nothing and worthless, and the Romantic me agrees, saying that's why they're beautiful. I try to believe that every human being is a story, that they are a hero of their own psyche and everyone else is a side character. That makes it easier for me, believing that I am the hero of my own story, but I suppose that's true for everyone. Heroism is meant to come with modesty, and while I believe I am the greatest in my heart, our brain is required to ground us, keep us in touch with reality and our flaws.
"I suppose everyone feels that he's the hero in his own story, but there are no heroes, no villains, just people doing the best they can"
This, in my mind, is a true way to live. If for one second, I can believe I am a majestic demigod hero about to save the world, flying off the empire state building into a sea of horrible monsters crowding the streets of Manhattan...then maybe life isn't so bad. In lies, really good lies, there is always truth, and maybe part of that lie I tell myself actually is true.
I am a hero, maybe not to everyone else, but when it comes to who I am, everyone else isn't important. Selfishness has been condemned in our society, to where we're supposed to feel guilty for it. Wrong. Sometimes, emotionally, we have to be selfish to survive, and that's okay, because we can become better.
We can't be afraid of the precipice, we can only embrace it, and become a better version of ourselves.
We can keep fighting.
Afterthought: That music was depressing. Have some fighting music.
After two days at my dad's, where I mainly played Halo Reach (achieving Legendary mode status, for anyone who knows what a momentous achievement that is), today was my first full day back at my mom's. That being said, I'm not really sure what to talk about, having ridden out the spirit journey of my dad's. I tend to try, but is the absence of a struggle to draw on, in itself, a struggle to draw on?
I met my best friend yesterday night, my first night back at my mom's after two weeks. Naturally, mom didn't approve of me staying up late to browse the internet, and I myself thought, "alright, I'll get off after this next person", when suddenly, there she was, the best friend I realized I had never had as a child. Instead of moving to Austin, preferably south, her parents made the decision to go to Nevada to live (I'm not sure if her parents actually considered this, but if they did, I won't be surprised). Several defining aspects of my character were drawn to the bubbling surface of my psyche to meet her, finding equal elements within her, and I wondered if I had a twin.
Of course, we look nothing alike, but when faced with a standardized test of who we were, we are hardly distinguishable. She doesn't know about this blog. She hasn't read it, hasn't seen the darkness of my past, but I bet that she'll find some aspect of herself within it, some way to relate. A new best friend will always find the way to relate. Before anyone says she's just someone I met on the internet and thus I don't actually know her at all, I'm inclined to raise one of the fingers from my hand, and you can guess which one. I'm unashamed to say I knew her more in one hour than I did any of the 100+ people in my 4 years of high school. I know her more, because I need only know me.
Knowing yourself comes in handy, to say the least.
Brainwashing is surprisingly commonplace. Brainwashing is akin to hypnosis, in that it requires submission of will to an outside force, such as society or a company's advertisement or even a single person. Brainwashing is hypnosis used nefariously, used to make another person believe themselves someone other than themselves. Of course, I prefer to help people via hypnosis, help them realize that the person who they are is a total badass. The definition of badass is inherently subjective, but in essence, a badass is a term to describe something respected. Who doesn't want to be respected?
"There are greater things than victory
Today is my day, no matter if I win or lose.
I will look out into the storm of fire and death and cry, "oh what a day! What a lovely day!"
Today I will be awake, for that is my potential. I have potential for many things. I am a singer, a writer, an artist, a dreamer. I'm more than just one person, I am everything I've ever been and everything that I will become. I am feminist as much as i am mysogynist, the only difference is my choice.
I choose to be awake.
My life is my own. Life is a series of suggestions, "do this" "dress like that" "don't say such things", but I have control over which suggestions I accept. I can accept the suggestion to do this, but disregard the one about how I should dress.
Right now, my body is giving me the suggestion that I'm anxious, that I'm not worth it, that I'm afraid. With the snap of my fingers (snaps) I disregard these suggestions. These are animal instincts, and I am no animal, I am greater.
My name is ___________, and no matter what, this day is mine.
Today I will walk home with my held higher than when I walked out, for the endurance of failure is more honorable than the avoidance thereof. I will face my demons. With the snap of a finger, they have no power over me (snaps).
The only person who has power over me and my decisions is my higher self, the glorious young (man/woman) who's speaking aloud right now, the best that the person known as [Name] can be.
Just as I have my worst shortcomings, I have (him/her), my higher self. (She/he) is as much a part of me as my anxiety, a shining star in the blackness.
(She/he) is me, and I cannot deny (his/her) rightful power.
I am __________, and this day is mine."
DIRECTIONS: Read aloud to yourself, and believe every word.
Ever since Emilia's suicide ten months ago, I've always tried my hardest to help people.
I remember her telling me one time that her English teacher was showing off my blog in her class, attempting to give her students some essence of human emotion to draw upon, to help them realize that life isn't sunshine and roses, that even in spite of that, we keep going, that none of them are alone.
This blog is my passive attempt at helping people.
Ever since then, I've always unofficially been a therapist or a counselor to people, whenever I could be, out of a desire to have no one else suffer like she did. It's only recently that I've pondered getting paid for it, and making a career out of it, but that's something my mother, naturally, disapproves of, the main reason being the lack of money, which is understandable, but also the stress. There are therapists who need counselors of their own because they can't cope with the stress and the weight of other people's problems, but when my mother mentioned this, all I could think was that I can take it. Why? Because I'm not 'taking' anything, not really. Is an artist unable to stand an art gallery?
I find a beauty in the human experience, as evidenced by literally everything I've ever written. I am a mix of a nihilist and a romantic, and that strange combination creates an insane perspective on the human condition. Life isn't just walking the dog. If that is your entire life, then that's boring. Your life is more than just walking the dog, your life is a story, with it's ups and downs and twists of a love triangle. Your life, if transcribed completely into a movie that people could spend all their time to watch, would be the most realistic and relatable thing ever filmed.
For the sake of your story, open yourself up to the bad things that'll inevitably happen in your life.
So I graduated a week or two ago. The beginning of June, in fact.
You may be asking, "why hasn't he written a blog post sooner? Surely he's excited!" Well, you've obviously been reading my blog post for a while. If you have, you're an idiot for not realizing how lazy I really am. Here I am, two weeks on my hands since my graduation, and I'm a practical recluse. Can I even keep using this blog, with no stress to vent on it? The posts will definitely become less frequent, but I will keep it going. I kinda have to, at this point.
Literally me
Maybe some music will help as I recount these past two weeks.
Anything is possible with a good battle soundtrack. That, and 10mg of adderall to keep you focused.
The week of graduation taught me a few things (the two weeks afterwards less so). There were three main events of this week: Senior Salute, Graduation, and Project Graduation.
Since LASA and LBJ are technically separate schools but we take part in graduation together, LASA has this thing called Senior Salute. Basically, it's our half of a separate graduation, where all the LASA students line up and are appreciated for being LASA students specifically, with all our inside jokes about the faculty and the class of 2016. At Graduation we can't give out specific awards from the teachers, much less make jokes about how they're ALL being awarded to Ethan Russo, the class's know-it-all who's surprisingly legit. At Senior Salute, we appreciate just LASA, have the class's achievements put on display, as well as the faculty poking fun at us in return. It's a small ceremony, and that means when I tell Ms. Kocian, the college counselor, to call me up as "Captain Dirk Yaple", there's a good chance she'll do it. Add in my carrying a juice box up onto the stage, and that probability increases. Never underestimate a juice box, kids.
Graduation was something else entirely. Senior Salute was the night I wanted to keep, it was my night of glory, and I almost didn't want to go to graduation, but I did, in the hopes I could make it better. I may not have been called Captain Dirk Yaple, but there are times I don't want to be, times where I'm content just to be Dirk Yaple. Again, a juice box in hand, snuck in under your gown, helps with this. Better still, there was a camera pointed at every graduate as they walked onstage, so when I walked on, I toasted the camera and took a good long sip. Such was life.
If someone photoshops a juice box into Nux's hand, I would be so happy.
Then, during graduation, there was the empty silence where someone went up and talked. Most of the time it was the principals, but I enjoyed hearing the speeches done by each school's valedictorians and salutatorians (Ethan Russo, naturally, was our valedictorian, no surprise there). For a moment in my boredom, I wondered what if I was supposed to give a speech and wasn't told about it and would have to improvise it on the spot. My ideas went towards the idea of our belief that we will change the world through our determination, and then the fantasy bored me. Our salutatorian went up and gave his own speech about how we were a generation who had grown up within the information age, and how that might influence events, while Ethan Russo gave a speech about the importance of friendship within the remainder of our lives.
Their speeches reminded me of the isolated celebrations of senior salute, the ceremony simply for LASA. It's a bit of a discrepancy when we're compared to LBJ, as while LBJ students are congratulating themselves for earning an associate's degree during high school, our salutatorian is going to UT to research plasma physics as a precursor to learning about nuclear fission. There's the team that makes it to the championships every year, and then there's the team that's just happy to be there. I'm not sure what else to say about this, but good for them. Everyone has their day. They had theirs, I had mine.
That night, from midnight to 6, we had project graduation, the lock-in at the YMCA specifically for the seniors of LASA. There we all just had fun. I had a lightsaber duel with a friend, kicked ass at twister, and most importantly, watched a hypnotist do a little comedy routine, which helped me solidify my own ideas about my career path. No, I didn't see someone walk like a chicken and think "I wanna do that!" For a while, I've been obsessed with hypnotism and the effect it can have on our subjective psyche. I don't wanna be a hypnotist in the sense that that performer was, because that's not really hypnotism. With that guy, the most powerful force backing his hypnotism was peer pressure. Who wants to be that asshole, right?
True hypnotism isn't in front of an audience, true hypnotism is a belief one accepts in their own eyes, be it true by everyone else's standards. Hypnotism is (most of the time) only possible with an audience of one. Hypnotherapy is more up that alley, no matter how much I'd like to see Sydney fangirl over Derian Golden's ass again. That shit was hilarious, especially considering she was hypnotized to not remember until 2 minutes later. I wish I'd had a camera then.
Y'all got some summer reading to do!
Fuck, I'm gonna miss LASA. It's only this semester I learned about the free breakfast! Sure, it was stressful, but I liked it, it gave me motivation to keep going, and allowed me a constant source of distraction to work on other things, like fanfiction. I find it a lot more inspiring to ignore what a teacher's droning on and instead just write for pages on end. I have several open projects, including a letter to my uncle, which I haven't even touched yet! One of these is my Person Of Interest crossover with Agents Of Shield, but the reasoning for that is that the final episode premieres tonight, and I can't keep writing until I know how it really ends.
Back to LASA (I'll write another blog post specifically about POI and why everyone should watch it), it was a home to me. It was a place where someone could be weird and absolutely no one gave a fuck in a negative fashion. It was a homebrew of enthusiasm not just for learning, but for life. In the students were displayed a determination to keep going, no matter the stress, and I admire that most of all about them.
LASA was the greatest and most defining experience of my life, and I'll never ever forget who I became from it.
There was a time when I wrote several blog posts in a certain time frame, it meant I was depressed. If anyone was thinking this about now, they're wrong. I'm having the time of my life right now.
God, the feels from that song.
The song I encountered during show week. During show week, to help assure us, my theatre teacher played that song for us. The meaning, as you can tell, is obvious. It was the last show of the year, of my high school life, and I wasn't the only one crying about it. There were people there I loved, people I didn't want to leave, hence the crying by all. I'm gonna graduate soon, and this era of my life will be over.
...How the fuck do I write about that?
To write what music has already inspired, how do I do that? With this one era of my life over, the next will also be over before my eyes, until I'm dead and can tell my story no more.
God, I had so many more words for this in my head. I typically do, coming up with random profound thoughts on the fly, forgetting them just as quickly. I write down as much as I can, but I can't write down everything. When we finally gain the technology to copy one's mind down exactly, we can feel exactly what another person is feeling at a certain moment. Sure, we've achieved immortality via our social media and blog posts, but it's not the same as exactly what I'm feeling. I'm still internally revising within my head when I'm not drawing blanks, forcing words to come out onto the screen. They're genuine and false at the same time, as forced words usually are.
I guess I'm mystified by the shock of my life, as anyone would be. We've all known that feeling, where we sit down and suddenly don't know how we feel or how to say how we feel. I suppose in this instance the music says it all. I'm melancholy, being forced to consider the path my life might take. I had to write a paper for English about anything, so I wrote about how instead of being a good student, I focused on being a good person. I condemn the future, instead saying to enjoy these present moments. Hypocrisy gets to the best of us, I suppose, at least in this one moment.
Most of the time, I'm here, in the present, and I enjoy it. I'm numb to my pain, save the pain of loneliness. I suppose for every teenager, there comes a time when they have no one to love in a romantic sense. My past relationships may not have gone in the best possible way, but I don't regret them. Love's been a cycle for me: fall in love, pursue, (optional: be happy), then get crushed by some inordinate circumstance. I want love, and those around me find it, but how can I?
My life is a comedy based in tragedy. I'm Xander Harris' source for self-esteem. My life is sad, more sad than anyone can imagine, because I consider things superficial that I don't care about, and thus I find so many things comedic, rather than tragic. Comedy and Tragedy are two sides of the same coin, and you can choose how to regard every event of your life. So many things are funny to me because I've had enough tragedy in my life.
I live a sad life, but I'm not depressed. In life, we can choose to find exactly what we're looking for. My mother worries 24/7 about me and how on top of my life I am, while I regard it with impassive acceptance. I've always regarded my life as something I'll deal with one thing at a time. I don't worry about the big things, only ever the littlest things, because I think I'm convinced I need to worry about something. My inability to worry sets me apart, making me something else. I am about to graduate, assuming I get my English grade up, but my grades aren't my insecurity. I've finally started lacking insecurity, and it's liberating.
I'm sad, but it's the kind of sadness that struck you when you were a little kid. Sure, it's horrible and you want to die, but a minute later, it's over, and you've practically forgotten about it.
I'm sad, but inside, I'm still growing. I'm still alive, I'm ready to love, I'm ready to live.
The one thing I tend to have problems with most is my apparent lack of purpose in the universe.
Yesterday was opening night for the show I'm in, After The Fall, by Arthur Miller. It's a very introspective play, one that I felt I related to too much. Then again, I think everyone related too much to it in some way. That's why it can shock us, that we yearn for it so much without even a hint of love on our faces. There is some kind of love that isn't the kind that is seen, it is the kind that is felt. It's the kind we refuse to acknowledge even when it's staring us in the face.
"Oh damn all these women! If only they could be more like my mother!"
I'm not that kind of person, thank god. I feel the ways I feel, and instead of letting them drown me in despair or anger, I chart them, find out where they go, and ask why. I've done a lot of asking why. In English I was assigned a project where I write a letter to myself 10 years in the past and 10 years in the future. The one to the past was easier, as I had a lot more to draw on. It led me to consider where my social anxiety comes from, what experiences in my life made me afraid. It was always the people I was forced to be with for lack of any betters, like in a small Montessori school. There were 13 kids in that school, with a roughly even gender divide, and all the boys were into sports and the boy scouts. That sound like me? Nope. Whenever I attempted to talk about nerdy things like Bionicle, I was silenced. I was without an audience, I was lost, and I was boo'd off the stage every time.
We always stick with our instincts. It's biological, the fact that even though later on I went to a middle school of hundreds, I still believed my crowd wasn't there. I had friends, and most of them were appropriate listeners on any topic, with a few black sheep (namely an ass with a black wool shirt) shutting me down anytime they felt like it. Just as prom solidified my belief of what my friend J had told me, middle school solidified the feelings of the small Montessori school that made me insecure. Sure, team sports are a great way for your child to make friends, so long as your child is into team sports.
It's had an effect on me my whole life. Even now, with my sociopathic optimism driving my confidence, I still feel my instincts tugging the other way. Sometimes I can resist with ease, but I'm only human. I still get the feeling that my new friends will shut me down, be disinterested, even Lukas. It's a horrible feeling, being pulled in two by yourself. You feel empty, you feel both the urge to put yourself out there and at the same time you realize the pointlessness of it all.
I think this play came at the right time, as it typically does (hmm...correlation doesn't imply what again?). I like acting and roleplaying. It allows me to step outside myself, have some clarity, see the world through a different lens. I'm being told who to be rather than simply being. My sister might use this to justify her own excessive roleplay online (and I do mean excessive), but I'll explain why she shouldn't. She's in middle school, she doesn't know who she is yet. She may have some idea, maybe only a little, but if she keeps stepping outside herself, she'll never figure out who she is. I'd advise acting for her, since it at least gets her out of the house. Acting, though, is different from roleplay in that there's an audience, and you're to tell a story to other people, who'll be pressed to understand your work as well as enjoy it.
A distraction is sometimes necessary from life. In all my high school life, I've internally embraced that philosophy. If we try to be serious all the time, then we're just fully objective people with sticks up our asses, hence my sense of humor. Everything is funny in the right context. Wit is the greatest tool we can use to alleviate the suffering of others. Who's suffering? Not just the guy with the broken leg, but the person right next to you, your dearest friend who's having the time of his life, we are all suffering every day. That's all life is, and the sooner we accept that, we can quit assigning blame to deities or ethnicity or economic status and get around to alleviating it.
Sorry Bernie
That being said, I was suffering last night until the show began. In that moment, I was stuck between Dirk and Ike. When the show started, I was alright, as I knew who to be, but before then I suffered. In whose name do you turn your back...but your own? Is it possible to break character when your character is defined by breaking character? I'm different every day, parts of me dying or coming to life with every passing moment. I'm surrounded by people who suffer, they just are good at hiding it. I'm good at hiding it too, don't get me wrong. This isn't a justification for my breaking down, because I haven't, not yet. This is me denying my escapism as best I can. It's impossible to do so fully, with literally everything in our lives there to distract us.
When you escape too long, and you finally get back to the real world in the form of a solid silent second, it crushes you, because it's too much to handle and you've rejected this pain by turning away from it, but that doesn't mean your pain can't grip you by the shoulders and turn you back around again.
Too depressing for you? Good.
Whenever I post a depressing blog post, people act like I am depressed, too depressed to function, and might even commit suicide within a day. Don't get me wrong, I like attention, but this isn't just for me. This is for you, a gift to help you acknowledge the same darkness that lives within you. It hurts me and burns me, but I simply look it in it's cold black eyes with impassivity. You? Could you handle your inner darkness to the extent that I do, alone as I am? Or perhaps, maybe my darkness is significant in that it would destroy anyone...except me?
I accept my pain. It is a part of me, and no amount of anything will get rid of it. I can only keep moving, and maybe I'll drop some of it along the way.
We all suffer, that is undeniable. The difference is whether you carry your personalized darkness on your back or in a wagon. Which is easier? Whichever one you feed That would be up to you, because everyone's darkness is different, and you're the one that knows yours best.
There are many nights of your life that are the most important, the nights where it doesn't matter if everything goes wrong or if everything goes right. Sure, those nights can change your life, for good or ill, but the important part is that it doesn't matter, they're nights where you can live without the fear of recompense, a night that's easily forgotten, yet can create the person you become. My problem has always been with who I am and what I've become, so this night was important to me.
Tonight was my senior prom.
Now, dances aren't my thing. The last dance (the homecoming dance of my freshman year) I was at, I literally was on my phone the whole time. In my defense, the girl I'd asked to it brought her boyfriend along. Go figure. Even then, when it comes to a girl I truly love enough to have romantic affection for, I will shut down, unable to utter a single word in her presence unless I were to know she felt the same way about me. Meanwhile, every other girl, because of my controlled sociopathism (is that a word?), I find myself easily able to talk to because I have no romantic affection for them. So asking a girl out to prom is kinda hard, because there's the matter of who I'm able to ask and who I want to ask. I asked a girl in my friend group out to prom (spoilers: she said no) because she's the highest on the scale of romantic affection before it gets towards deprecating my social function (all the other girls are cool, but romantically I don't care for them).
good luck trying to figure out how that scale works. I'm pretty sure I don't entirely know, and I made it up!
Luckily, one of my best female friends had another female friend to be my unofficial "date" for the evening. She was alright, albeit a bit awkward towards me, but that was to be expected, as I'd only just met her. She asked me as she drove me home why I didn't just ask a girl I thought was pretty, and to be honest, I actually had to think a moment. Why didn't I? Why didn't I just go with a random girl who was lower on the romantic attraction spectrum (well, I did, but I don't usually make a habit of it)?
It's because...I wanted it to be more genuine than the usual, superficial model of dating. It's like a joke about pussy, I never get it. The idea of asking out a girl I truly love has always been my one and only goal, rather than just asking someone out. It's like I'm playing a game, and I immediately switch to the hardest difficulty, even though I've barely survived the tutorial. I've wanted to conquer my greatest challenge long before I was ready, and that's prevented me from enjoying the game.
There are two main aspects to this blog post: the romantic aspect, which I'll continue on later, and the social aspect, which affected me equally as much.
Tonight I gained so much self-confidence, which seems impossible at one's senior prom unless they get really lucky.
My friends and I first went to a restaurant right next door to have dinner, where my date and my female friend went to go do something, as well as our other friend, leaving me alone with my gay friend, J. To be honest, I thought it was their attempt at being wingmen, but apparently not. Instead, the conversation drifted towards me and how much of a cool person I was. I'd never believed it before, whenever anyone told me how awesome I was, not even by my idol, Lukas, but tonight, it crashed down on me, and I was able to realize how much I was. A great conversationalist, an interesting person, good hair (I always agreed with that one, though). I still had my anxious habit of disbelieving any compliment I had been given (aside from the hair), but it was like that didn't matter. I was me, and I was proud of me, whether I wanted to be or not.
I suddenly felt myself able and willing to be who I am. I wasn't just me, I was me, if that makes any sense at all. There are days when you feel 10% yourself and days you feel 90%, but this was the night, and I felt like 100% myself. There was no emphasis as there always is as to who I should've been or who I could be, tonight was just a night of letting my inner me shine. Everyone else knew that, too. Tonight was just a night where we could be ourselves without the competitive instinct that comes with being a member of society.
Bonus points if anyone can guess which song I've put on my blog this is from without cheating
The entire night, I felt like I had a purpose, and it was to be. Everywhere I went, I didn't feel awkward, I didn't feel the need to be on my phone, I felt like everywhere I was, I was meant to be there. It was the most amazing I'd ever felt socially in a long, long while. More importantly, I knew everyone, and they knew me. So many people said hi to me with a smile on their faces that communicated such genuine appreciation (with the sad exception of Lukas, who left before I could say hello to him. Imagine the best case scenario version of yourself went to your school and was nowhere near the amount of "friend" you wanted him to be. That's Lukas to me, and this is me saying hello to him and that I feel as awesome as he is all the time) and my newfound belief from J's motivational statement was solidified. I was amazing, and I still am.
Back to my romantic aspect of this blog post, I left one of the necklaces my (ex) girlfriend gave me for Christmas at my dad's apartment, and instead decided to focus on myself. It was given to me because she thought of me when she looked at it, and I'd worn it through all that, a constant reminder of who I was in her eyes, and like with many bad relationships, I'd spent so much time thinking of her that I'd forgotten to even consider myself. She broke up with me to think of herself, and that selfish act I'd been annoyed at for so long, no matter how much I'd understood it.
There comes a time when you must finally dispel your negative feelings for the girl that rejected or dumped you. You can forget her, you can ignore her, you can mutter "that bitch" under your breath when she walks by, but she will always be a part of you, no matter how much you run from her. My old crush will always occupy a space in my heart, and it aches slightly whenever I see her happy, but there comes a time when you move on. I moved on with my girlfriend, and my feelings for my old crush were muffled, giving me a new thing to focus on which I now have to move on from in turn.
Tonight was the night I solidified myself, and the night that I forgave her, not a trace of pride or anger in my bandaged heart.
It sucks being dumped. It really does. You've spent so much time relying on someone else and now you're forced to rely on yourself only. Tonight I was forced into the mold of the person I've always wanted to be, and when my unofficial date kissed me goodnight, (my first actual kiss, awkwardly enough) I realized I was comfortable with moving on, even if I still held a candle for her should she return (not with my prom date, she has a boyfriend).
Yeah, shit's good right now. I feel whole. Tonight created me, and though people say they'll forget their senior prom, I never will.
You never forget what...or when made you who you are.
