Damages

“I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons.”  That’s a line from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, for all of you wondering.  This line probably holds the most truth for me, because recently, or maybe in the last like five years I’ve been on a really long, never-ending rollercoaster of change.  And I’m sure it’s one rollercoaster that a lot of teenagers, and even adults are familiar with. 

But anyways, in the last five years life has switched from just plain sucking, to being okay, to sucking again, to being really good, then to sucking, then to being okay (for real, there have been a lot more switch-ups then that, but I felt I was being too repetitive).   And recently, talking to my therapist, we were discussing how, in the Perks of Being a Wallflower, everyone was damaged.  Like, everyone in that book was so screwed up it was unreal.  Except for maybe the teacher.  And then, I said how lately, I’d been feeling a lot like that bundle of bananas that got all brown and nobody wants.  In short- I’d been feeling like damaged goods.  And my therapist said, “Well, that’s perfectly natural.  Katy, in some ways, everybody is damaged.  It’s doesn’t matter the degree, but, not a person from this world makes it out without a few scars.”  

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right.  There are so many ways to screw up a kid, or even a person.  Like, in the book, Charlie is really messed up because his aunt molested him.  Patrick is messed up because he can’t get over Brad.  Brad is messed up because he can’t accept himself.  Charlie’s sister is messed up because she lets her boyfriend hit her.  Charlie’s brother is messed because he cheats on his girlfriend.  And even Sam, the one who seems like she is the only one who knows anything in this entire book, is messed up, because “We only accept the love we think we deserve.”  And Sam doesn’t really think she deserves much. 

And everyone in real life is damaged too.  Like, my friend lets her dad bully her because she is afraid of him.  Some family I know really only pays attention to one of their children.  Even my best friend has a hard time realizing that she is more than worthy of love. 

So, compared to the world, I realize I don’t have it so bad.  I was bullied in eighth grade, but that’s over now.  I’m not exactly grateful for it, but I wonder what I’d be like without it.  But it’s what made me start realizing who I want to be, and what I want out of life. 

As I’ve said before, I want to be a good person.  I want to be a writer, and I want to be loved.  I want to get so good at ski racing, that I’ll show the headmaster of  my school, and make him sorry for everything offhand remark he’s ever made.  I want to inspire people to do good things.  But, most of all, I just want to be a good person.

Because I realized that there are a lot of people that are really, really damaged, and are still really good people.  And if they can be good, then I kind of owe it to the world to be good, don’t I? 

“And I hope they are happy, I really hope they are.”

“This lullaby is only a few words


A simple run of chords


Quiet here in this spare room


But you can hear it, hear it


Wherever you may go


I will let you down


But this lullaby plays on”

Taking The Plunge

It's hard to say why we love the people we do.  People say there are a million ways to lose someone, which is true, but there are also a million ways to love someone.  And the thing about it is, you can't ever really put your finger on why it's this person, out of the other six billion on the planet, that you've chosen to love.  I will never be able to fully tell you why I love my parents, why I love my siblings, my cousins, my Nana and my Aunt and Uncle.  I Couldn't tell you why I love my friends, some of my coaches.  I couldn't tell you why I love the songs I do.  I couldn't tell why why I love my childhood friend so very much, and that when she leaves, It's feels like someone is tearing a hole in my back with their nails.

I couldn't tell you why, I couldn't tell you how much I love some of these people.  The only thing I could tell you is that it feels right.  And not only that, but it makes you feel good to love someone with the entirety of your soul.  Like I said in one of my earlier posts, which is a really good example of this, I got my friend a pair of earrings for her birthday, and the fact that she was happy to get them, felt better than any present I ever get will.

When you are little, you love your parents because they are your parents and you have to love them.  But when you get older, and you start to think and realize and really and truly love them, life becomes infinitely more complicated.  You make sacrifices for the ones you love, you want to be a better person for the people you love.

But life becomes scarier when you love someone, because you risk the possibility of losing them.  And you have to make tough decisions, make scary and dangerous and downright stupid moves to keep them.  And, to quote an earlier blog post, "that's what you do when you love somebody."

My friend's dad once told us, when we were about ten, that loving someone is a lot like taking a plunge into a freezing cold, shark infested lagoon.  He went on to say that it will most likely be the scariest thing you've ever been faced with, had to do.  But he said that, without fail, he would do it every time for my friend, and her siblings, and her mom, because he loved them more than anything in our world.

Whatever we do in this life insignificant.  Some people could make the argument that taking that plunge into the lagoon is not worth it, and they'd probably be right.  And I bet one day, and I'll be standing on a rock ledge above that lagoon, looking down into those hungry sharks mouths, into the freezing cold water.

And I'll take the plunge, every time.  Because that's what you do, when you really, and truly love someone.

"You belong to me, I belong to you."

"Because I love you, and that's all I know right now, and I'm on a journey, and as long as your on that journey, I'll be okay, I'll be okay."

"Deep inside, the feeling always stays the same."

Little Princes

There's this really cool video called The Most Astounding Fact, that talks about the stars and some other stuff like the Universe.  In the video, the guy talking says that he looks up at the universe, and instead of feeling small, he feels big.  He feels this way, because the same atoms that make him up make up the cosmos, and the planets, and the whole entirety of freakin' space and time.  And It made me think a lot.  Because while it's true, what he said, I don't feel that way.  But I don't feel small either.

Well, that's not true either.  I feel like a little kid sitting at the base of a mountain looking up and thinking, I am never going to make it up this thing.  Because the reality is, I most likely won't ever go into space.  I won't ever feel as close and as connected to the world as this guy does, or as astronauts and astrophysicists and other people who have jobs starting with the word astro do.  And it makes me sad, because I live on a tiny speck in a sea of tiny specks, in like, the largest speck resort ever.  And i might never ge to go up to the roof of that resort and look out at the rest of the world while it sleeps.

Another thing this guy in the video talks about is connection, and how as humans, that is all we want to find, human connection.  It seems like an accepted fact that when you grow up, you'll get married and have children.  But, what if that isn't the kind of connection he is talking about?  What if he means connection with the world, with the stars and the planets and other spacey stuff?  What if he means connection within yourself?  It is impossible to tell what he means, just as it is almost impossible for me to think that someday I'll go to space.

In the song, "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, an astronaut goes off into space, and doesn't come back.  He's on communication, and one of the last things he says is to tell his wife he loves her.  But the very last thing he says is how planet Earth is Blue, and describes that the stars look very peculiar.  And then his circuit cuts dead, and inevitably, he goes off to die, somewhere in space.

 In his last moment of life, up in a tin can in space, He looked at the stars all around him.  And I bet he felt really close to them, and really close to the whole of space.  I bet he was really sad that his wife couldn't see it with him.  Maybe he was really sad that everyone else couldn't see it, too. Because it makes me sad that I won't ever see that.

It's every little kids dream to be an astronaut, at some point or other.  Maybe that's because, when we are so young and innocent and don't know much of the world, something inside us tell us that the stars are something that need to be seen, to be felt close to.  Even though, we know, deep down that we probably won't get to see them.

But, on the right nights, when I go outside, and look up at the night sky, I can see all the stars, like tiny beacons of hope, thousands of them, shining in the dark nights.  And I feel big.  Becaus I'm made of what they are made of.  And someday, when I die, someone else will go out and look at the stars.

And they'll feel the same way I did.


"This is Major Tom to ground control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today"

"I could tell an antique lie
full of all the things I want to hide
but that would only lead to the truth"

"Look at that speck.
That's home, that's us."

Trojans

So, In one of my previous posts, I said I was going to try and be funnier, or light-hearted or whatever.  Well, sorry.  I lied.  But, I realized that you can't force yourself to be happy, no matter how much you desperately want to.  Because there is always that little nagging feeling in the bottom of your stomach.

Lately, like in the past few months, I've been feeling damaged.  Like, everything needs to be a certain way, and when it isn't, it makes me really angry.  And I know I have a temper, I know that, but this is different.  I see red, pure red.  And then other times, I really can't handle the world.  And I just feel so insecure, and helpless about everything.  The fact that my parents are making me go to a therapist really doesn't do anything to stop the little voice in my head telling me that I'm not normal.  Well- not that I'm not normal, because there really isn't anyone who is just "normal" whatever that is- but that there is something really and truly wrong with me.

And it's not this bullshit teenager finding yourself stuff that most people go through.  It feels like more.  I know it's more.  I hope it's not more.

But I just have to make it through the year.  I have three weeks or so left of school, and if I can just make it through that, I'll be okay.  At least that's what I keep telling myself at three o'clock in the morning when I've been up for the past five hours.  Because that's been happening a lot more frequently than I would like to admit.  I used to just not tell people, to pretend that everything is fine.  But now, I just don't care.  I feel so desperate, and so tired.

I'm scared of what the therapist will say.  I'm scared of what my friends will say.  I'm scared of what my parents, my siblings will say.  I'm scared of what the mean kids at school will say.  I'm scared of growing up, of leaving home, of going to a bad college, of failing school and the SAT's.

Because the reality is, everything is not fine. In fact- it's probably the farthest from fine it's ever been.  Including that period in eighth grade where I wanted to kill myself.  This is worse.

So I hope that, sometime soon, I will feel fine.  At least I hope I will. I really hope I will.  Because I want the sleepless nights to stop more than anything.  I just want to sleep, to be able to feel again.  I just want that picture of a smiling little kid again.

That's all I want.  I want myself back.

"regardless
The walls get painted anyway
Oh you're guarding
The gates, but it all got away
Your trojan's in my head"

"Underneath this fragile frame

Lives a battle between pride and shame
But I've misplaced that sense of fright
This crown of thorns is perched atop my spine
But listen closely as I testify
Dependency has been a thief at night
Thief at night, thief at night"