Wednesday, March 31, 2010
formspring.me
David Keenan, I am going to continue to delete your questions, but everyone else can ask me stuff! http://formspring.me/skybird
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Oh, love's gonna get you down
I don’t want to talk about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. In fact, I’m not sure I can. My worst mistake is easy, though. I stopped letting people in after that moment. I sort of gave up on them, then bottled up my feelings until I thought I would burst, so I had to let them bubble out through my skin. They body-slammed me into treatment after that and I lay there, crumpled.
My “therapist” didn’t really do much. I zipped my lips up about Melanie and fed him spoonfuls of spun-glass lies. He decided I was just over-stressed, bopped me on the head with his all-better stick, and sent me on down the yellow brick road. My dad drove me home from the Wizard of Oz and we didn’t talk about it. He didn’t want a defective Amanda-puppet who tore holes in herself, but he’d forgotten to renew the warranty.
I learned after that. I stuffed my feelings down my throat and swallowed without chewing. I locked my secrets in a box in the back of my head and I didn’t open the door. Memories piled menacingly in the corners, but as long as I kept busybusybusy, they’d be too exhausted to come out and play. I kept going like that, robot-shell-Amanda doing all the work while I hibernated inside.
That’s not really living, though. Eventually, I began to forget. The Amanda that had been sleeping woke up, stretched her arms, yawned. She blinked and looked around sleepily, deciding whether to stay awake. Her friends coaxed her back into the morning, fed her honey-soaked words of love that made her want to come back, to try to see in herself what they seemed to see in her.
Her eyes were broken, though. She tried to believe them, but her self-perception was like a funhouse mirror, with a big bulge right around her midsection. She suspected that her parents’ words had somehow put it there, but she couldn’t prove it. She tried everything to snap back to real vision, but she just couldn’t do it. Eventually, she just gave up and lived her life, letting her parents’ words roll off of her like rain. It was the first good thing she’d done for herself.
I let myself be that Amanda for a good long while. I was perfectly happy with her. Then Taylor texted me late one night. Stop the ride, I wanna get off, he said. I couldn’t let him, though. I saw Melanie’s name in the subject line, flashing images of her crowded my mental screen. I was irritable (more so than usual), and my dad got scared; he’d forgotten the way down the yellow brick road, and the wizard had probably retired anyway, so there was nothing he could do.
He called Glinda (also known as my guidance counselor) and begged her for help. She said “bippity boppity boo” and sent me off to a lady with grasshopper eyes and hair that looked like it was on fire. I didn’t lie to her. I told her the story, over and over again, and she listened and nodded like they taught her in school and asked me questions when she thought appropriate. I talked and talked and talked, until I thought that all of the words had left me.
She couldn’t fix me, though. While I wasn’t paying attention, my problems had snuck off into corners and multiplied. They made babies that had teeth; small, itchy things that wouldn’t let go. I started having to tell my teachers I had “doctors’ appointments” on Thursday mornings. I’d go sit on a scratchy yellow couch with a pillow pulled over my stomach and talk some more. I had to start at the beginning, and I didn’t want to. She didn’t believe in too much talking, though. She didn’t validate my feelings because sometimes, she said, they weren’t valid.
We got along just fine.
That isn’t to say we always agreed. I did not want to do her weird breathing exercises, but she didn’t want me to continue on having panic attacks, so we had to compromise. I dealt with my embarrassments and took teaspoonfuls of her medicine, one at a time. One, diaphragmatic breathing, two, identifying misperceptions, three, opening up. I filled up with her medicine until I thought I would burst.
That was her plan, though. I had to make room inside, so I let some things go. I told her how much I hated a boy, how much I cared about a girl, how much people scared me. She told me to ignore the boy, talk to the girl, and trust, trust, trust. I could do the first two, and I’m still working on the third.
I’m working, though, and that is the point. Her road isn’t paved with yellow bricks. It isn’t really paved at all. I am picking up the stones in my path instead of jumping over them. I’m not stumbling over them or being stopped by them; I’m learning to take them and build something.
Eventually, I think, I will find that it is a door. I will have forgotten the door and the box it leads to, which is why I will open it. Right as it creaks open, I’ll remember what it is and try to shut it again, but it will be too late. The door will swing open, full force, and I’ll have no choice but to look in the box.
The box will have been empty all along.
(this is my life)
My “therapist” didn’t really do much. I zipped my lips up about Melanie and fed him spoonfuls of spun-glass lies. He decided I was just over-stressed, bopped me on the head with his all-better stick, and sent me on down the yellow brick road. My dad drove me home from the Wizard of Oz and we didn’t talk about it. He didn’t want a defective Amanda-puppet who tore holes in herself, but he’d forgotten to renew the warranty.
I learned after that. I stuffed my feelings down my throat and swallowed without chewing. I locked my secrets in a box in the back of my head and I didn’t open the door. Memories piled menacingly in the corners, but as long as I kept busybusybusy, they’d be too exhausted to come out and play. I kept going like that, robot-shell-Amanda doing all the work while I hibernated inside.
That’s not really living, though. Eventually, I began to forget. The Amanda that had been sleeping woke up, stretched her arms, yawned. She blinked and looked around sleepily, deciding whether to stay awake. Her friends coaxed her back into the morning, fed her honey-soaked words of love that made her want to come back, to try to see in herself what they seemed to see in her.
Her eyes were broken, though. She tried to believe them, but her self-perception was like a funhouse mirror, with a big bulge right around her midsection. She suspected that her parents’ words had somehow put it there, but she couldn’t prove it. She tried everything to snap back to real vision, but she just couldn’t do it. Eventually, she just gave up and lived her life, letting her parents’ words roll off of her like rain. It was the first good thing she’d done for herself.
I let myself be that Amanda for a good long while. I was perfectly happy with her. Then Taylor texted me late one night. Stop the ride, I wanna get off, he said. I couldn’t let him, though. I saw Melanie’s name in the subject line, flashing images of her crowded my mental screen. I was irritable (more so than usual), and my dad got scared; he’d forgotten the way down the yellow brick road, and the wizard had probably retired anyway, so there was nothing he could do.
He called Glinda (also known as my guidance counselor) and begged her for help. She said “bippity boppity boo” and sent me off to a lady with grasshopper eyes and hair that looked like it was on fire. I didn’t lie to her. I told her the story, over and over again, and she listened and nodded like they taught her in school and asked me questions when she thought appropriate. I talked and talked and talked, until I thought that all of the words had left me.
She couldn’t fix me, though. While I wasn’t paying attention, my problems had snuck off into corners and multiplied. They made babies that had teeth; small, itchy things that wouldn’t let go. I started having to tell my teachers I had “doctors’ appointments” on Thursday mornings. I’d go sit on a scratchy yellow couch with a pillow pulled over my stomach and talk some more. I had to start at the beginning, and I didn’t want to. She didn’t believe in too much talking, though. She didn’t validate my feelings because sometimes, she said, they weren’t valid.
We got along just fine.
That isn’t to say we always agreed. I did not want to do her weird breathing exercises, but she didn’t want me to continue on having panic attacks, so we had to compromise. I dealt with my embarrassments and took teaspoonfuls of her medicine, one at a time. One, diaphragmatic breathing, two, identifying misperceptions, three, opening up. I filled up with her medicine until I thought I would burst.
That was her plan, though. I had to make room inside, so I let some things go. I told her how much I hated a boy, how much I cared about a girl, how much people scared me. She told me to ignore the boy, talk to the girl, and trust, trust, trust. I could do the first two, and I’m still working on the third.
I’m working, though, and that is the point. Her road isn’t paved with yellow bricks. It isn’t really paved at all. I am picking up the stones in my path instead of jumping over them. I’m not stumbling over them or being stopped by them; I’m learning to take them and build something.
Eventually, I think, I will find that it is a door. I will have forgotten the door and the box it leads to, which is why I will open it. Right as it creaks open, I’ll remember what it is and try to shut it again, but it will be too late. The door will swing open, full force, and I’ll have no choice but to look in the box.
The box will have been empty all along.
(this is my life)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
My name is Skywriter, and...
We had a talk about addiction today. Everyone else said "video games" or "Facebook." I don't mind being different, but I didn't want to be THAT different, so I said "reading." It was a half truth, meaning something that really was true but was mostly a lie to cover a deeper truth.
I am not a drug addict. Needles scare the hell out of me, and smoke would ruin my voice. Alcohol is an acquired taste that I don't care to acquire. Honestly, reading is one of the things I love and do almost constantly. Facebook I can do without; I haven't been on in days. TV is a nice distraction, but not necessary. My addictions are different, ones that I can't talk about.
This is my life.
I am not a drug addict. Needles scare the hell out of me, and smoke would ruin my voice. Alcohol is an acquired taste that I don't care to acquire. Honestly, reading is one of the things I love and do almost constantly. Facebook I can do without; I haven't been on in days. TV is a nice distraction, but not necessary. My addictions are different, ones that I can't talk about.
This is my life.
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