Day 01 → Something you hate about yourself.
I hate that I am so lazy. I hate that I won't dig past that laziness to find out what's behind it, why I do it. (That's already a lie.) The truth is that the laziness covers up a fear of failing and looking foolish. If I never try (because I'm lazy) then I never fail. That is related to deeper issues both within and without myself. For example, sometimes I am so infuriated at the expectations placed on me that I choose to fail on purpose by going the lazy route. I express a kind of failure through laziness (or other means) because I want to force the other person, someone who has put their expectations on me, to deal with disappointment.
Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.
I am very creative. To me, creativity is a responsibility. All the adults I grew up with were creative, so I see it as the responsibility of adulthood--one of the few that I adhere to. I feel sorry for people who say they aren't creative. I feel sorry for them the way I feel sorry for people who have been horribly, accidentally disfigured.
Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
The first thing that popped into my head: I have to forgive myself for being sentient.
Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.
I don't look at forgiveness as something that necessarily benefits the person you forgive. To me, forgiveness is the one thing I can be entirely selfish about; it doesn't matter whether or not the other person accepts or even knows about it.
Day 05 → Something you hope to do in your life.
I want to travel more. I want to travel a lot more simply because it scares me, travel.
Day 06 → Something you hope you never have to do.
I can't imagine ever having a child. The thought of having to care for a child day in and day out for decades fills me with disgust. The thought of being pregnant and giving birth to a child makes me physically ill.
I also hope that I never have to bury another sibling.
Day 07 → Someone who has made your life worth living for.
A woman with a very simple name, one of the simplest, who was fiercely kind to me not once but twice. I haven't seen or spoken to her in over a decade, but it was enough.
Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
I avoid naming people who do--or attempt to do this--in my blog, simply because I would never want them to find it and think that they had succeeded in making me feel anything at all. When people treat me like shit or try to make my life hell, I do as much as I can to make them miserable, to make them suffer, then I do as much as I can to forget them.
[Update: I went away for a couple of hours and thought of someone who I could call out for this for the very reason that at the time, I was too young to immediately grasp what this much older person was trying to do.
When I was eight and in the third grade, I played violin. The grody old violin teacher who always smelled like rosin used to come once a week to my elementary school to give lessons to me and two of the other girls in my class. The teacher had a reward system by which we could earn points for practice time and playing scales and so on. After a certain number of points, we could choose a prize from a box of little plastic trinkets. You know how kids are, plastic junk is the stuff of childhood motivation. We used to compete for points, the other two little girls and I, and we each kept overly meticulous records of the others' earned points.
One day, the teacher came while our class was having a party. There was pizza and punch and a puppet show and I didn't want to leave the party to go to a violin lesson and I said so. One of the two other little girls and I were made to go to the lesson anyway. (The second girl was part of the puppet show and couldn't be pulled out of class.) At the end of the lesson, the violin teacher pulled out the box of trinkets and let the other little girl choose a prize. Then she closed the box and sent us both back to class. On the way back to class the other little girl said to me, I wonder why she didn't give you anything.
We both knew that neither of us had enough points for a prize. The teacher had simply wanted to punish me for objecting to having to go to a lesson during our class party. She wanted me to feel like shit about it in fact. It seems like a small thing, but that small thing happened thirty-two years ago (that teacher is dead by now, surely), and here I am, simultaneously recalling and attempting to coherently condensing that ugly memory.
At the time, it was puzzling why the teacher would do that, but in fact, looking back I can see that this kind of shit happened to me a lot when I was a kid. I was an ugly, fat, four-eyed, smart, outspoken kid and that was enough to make some people hate me, even adults. It's still enough, though now that I'm no longer eight years old, I can defend myself.
On a tangential note, there is this: A few weeks ago, I came across a blog called "The Pervocracy" which is written by an awesome twenty-something woman. She wrote a blog post called "Growing Up Ugly" and it's one of the most amazing things I've read in a long time. A lot of it's about her sex life (it is a feminist/BDSM/sex blog ultimately), so if you don't want to read about that, skip down to the section called "When people give you shit, it's not because you deserve it, it's because they're shit-givers."
I wish I had turned out half so well as she has.]
Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
There was a young man in Japan whose name is engraved on my heart. There was no drifting, but a conscious decision to let go.
Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
There aren't many people among the living who fall into this category. I don't hang on to people like this really. Because I am so judgmental and unforgiving, I let go of people very, very easily. Almost too easily, probably.
Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Probably my sense of humor, biting and bitter though it is.
Day 12 → Something you never get compliments on.
My house-keeping skills--though that is simply because I have none. I'm being sarcastic, a little.
Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days.
Oh, jeez, do I really have to admit to a continuing love of Morissey's music?
Day 14 → A hero that has let you down.
I don't know that I've had a hero in a long time. I'm far too devoted to cynicism for that. But I also believe that the small print in the hero agreement we all sign tells us that one of the roles of heroes is to eventually disappoint.
Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
There is no thing that I couldn't live without.
Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.
I'd like to quit smoking--eventually.
And that catches me up with the truth to date. There will be more truth in the coming days, but first have a look at this.
This is a photo of the sky, rain, and a raven.
I took it the day David and I went to Acoma.
Do you see all three?
Here's my question: In that picture, is truth the sky or the rain or the raven?
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