…to help myself deal with, things. I was searching the vast reaches of the interwebs for a poem that I wrote many years ago and I stumbled upon a very old journal that I had. Deadjournal to be exact because I was, of course, too goth to have a Livejournal. It briefly dabbled in my experiences between March of 2003 and September of 2005.
As I read through the heartfelt words that my confused little 15 year-old mind unknowingly archived for me now, I smile. That person isn’t me. The memories are mine. The experiences I’ve had. The feelings I’ve felt, although heightened due to puberty I’m sure. I’m glad I’ve stuck to writing to express myself, it’s provided me with an outlet and a visible way to monitor my growth in both maturity and writing style. For the sake of reference, here’s one of my entries:
March, 25th, 2003
So i already knew dad was an asshole but i do believe yesterday was the straw that broke the camels back. He came home and Mrs.cheryl wanted to talk to him about money matters(bad idea!!!!dad is the equivalent of a 5 year old in this matter) so he got angry at her and kept saying fuck this and fuck that…blahblahblah…it kept going on so i told him to please stop using that language to mrs cheryl(i hate him talking like this) so he gave me a dirty look and told me ” i dont’s see you bringing fucking money into this fucking house” i didnt tell him anything after that. Then he said as he stormed into his room that i should “go live with your mom she doesnt have any fucking money problems” one thing…..WHAT IF I DO?!? I CAN ONLY TAKE IT SO LONG!!!!!than dad wont have to worry about bringing so much money cuz i wont live here! he can use it all on his precious boat and the newest surround sound system for all i care…im gonna talk to mum and see what the next step is because i REALLY cant take this anymore.Mrs.cheryl may be used to it but i am not willing to take it and if i do speak up it’ll cause more trouble. Its called verbal abuse but some people *ehmehm* just dont see it.AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
(Further proof of my ‘gothitude’. )
Growing up, it’s a good thing!
There are roughly 6,840,507,003 people on the earth. There are 6,840,507,003 people with opinions on this earth. Why would you want to base your actions on the opinions of anyone else when there will probably be 6,840,507,002 people that will not approve of your choice. Sure you won’t hear all of those opinions but even hearing from your closest friends is enough to make you left in an awkward state of, “Should I do this because of….or should I do this to make <Person> like me more….?”. My lesson learned is to not base my decisions on how others will perceive me.
When I was younger and desperate to fit in I went through so many stages, not only the natural progression of growing up and changing tastes but knowingly ignoring my own interests to blend in with the interests of others. That was a huge no-no. Even more recently I ALMOST did not pursue the love of my life because the opinion of some of those I was associated with. “He’s a nice guy but he’s not very attractive.”, “He’s a bit rough don’t you think?” I personally found him incredibly attractive but because he was not feminine, scrawny, and the perfect portrait of gothic indulgence, he was recommended as staying in the friend zone. In the end I followed my own heart and I know without a doubt that it was the right decision.
Some people might say that my particular approach to life is just not caring, but I do care. I care about what is best for me which probably is not what’s best for you. I care about living an enjoyable life because it’s short. I care about being considerate of those in my life. I care about enrichment and creativity, love, structure, productivity, and those impulsive moments that create memories. I just care about what I care about.
As of recently, I’ve been fixated on the fact that I will die. I’ve always had an irrational fixation on death. When I was around 10 or 11 I never thought I would make it past 21. I wasn’t scared, it didn’t bother me that I was 11 and was already thinking about my death. I was apathetic and almost looked at it in a beautiful way. I would sit there in class and imagine how it actually would come into fruition. I remember when my grandfather died and I did not cry. I felt a profound sense of loss and emptiness but I wasn’t capable of bringing myself to tears like the rest of my family. They were hurt by it, but I wasn’t doing it to be cold….I just wasn’t able to feel the way others felt.
Over the years I believe it has caught up to me. I now feel like a prisoner to my anxiety. Between the physical havoc caused by mental issues, prior years of neglect for my health, and my daily stresses, I feel as If I am a tightly wound spring. If one little thing sends a ripple through my routine I am knocked off kilter. The last of my efforts go into maintaining a calm, collected composure….which only depletes my energy and leaves me tired and unmotivated. I then disregard taking care of myself, spiraling into a depression that feeds on itself. I become fixated on the fact that I will die. That I AM dying. Frustrated at my inability to remain stable I become angry and bitter. Helplessness sets in. I contemplate getting health care and realize it is too expensive. Further and further down I go into a grey world fluctuating wildly between anger and apathy…..
…And then the fog dissipates. I get a moments respite before the cycle inevitably repeats itself. It sucks. It really, really sucks.
Today I am going to make some art. This is what I say every day, and every day I have full intentions to follow through. However, what I intend to do is rarely what I actually do. Here’s why:
I wake up late(It’s my day off of work), I stumble out of bed, am IMMEDIATELY met with the desire for coffee. Half-asleep I wander into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. I pass my roommate playing “Skyrim” on XBOX and strike up a conversation discussing the newest skills he’s acquired and plant my butt on the couch until I hear the coffee pot sputtering. Aah, delicious coffee. I feel a brief pang of guilt as I add milk and sugar to my coffee, after all I work at a coffee shop and am supposed to drink my coffee pure so that I can taste the subtle notes of…blah blah blah. It’s my day off! I smile and with coffee in-hand I make my way back to my room. My focus now having returned to art, I sit at my desk. “Now I will make art!”, I silently exclaim. “Oh, but I haven’t checked my facebook. I need to do that first…and then check my email incase I have something important. (I never really do)” 30 minutes go by, then 45, then an hour….finally I am done checking my important things. I go to grab my coffee mug but it’s now without coffee!
I wander into the kitchen again to grab another cup of coffee, this time with a bit more spring in my step. On the way back into the room I notice some clothes lying on the ground. I need to pick these up….my focus demands it. I get to my room and notice that my phone is dying, I plug it in. I look at my desk, it’s a bit cluttered…I need to clean it up a bit. I really need to use the restroom. I sit down again and remember that I got paid and need to budget, so I budget.
By the end of the day I have found numerous other things that held my focus…and although my intentions were to create art, most effort went into those distractions.
…I do have anger issues. I am pissed off at life and the people in it. I believe I am entitled to have this outlook due to the shit that has been thrown at me the 24 years I have been on this earth. However, I do not wallow in the muck and the filth. I try to make myself a better person because of it. From time to time I do lapse into a self-loathing, people-hating state of depression…and it sucks. Especially when my current source of income is primarily customer service. Displaced anger and contempt is not the best thing in this case.
By now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Oh what a whiner, i bet the worst thing she has to deal with is not finding a decent movie on the Netflix instant queue.” I’m fully aware of white-people-problems. Sure I have some of those but the majority of my issues have to deal with the fact that I was born into an unstable household, with parents who were never really together (i was an accident) both of whom were doing drugs while I was conceived, and I have a whole lineage on my mother’s side plagued with mental illness. That’s unpleasant but not so bad, right? Add in a balanced chromosomal translocation of the 1st and second chromosome which makes me practically unable to have ‘normal’ children unless I have the money to have some doctor siphon out some eggs, check to see if any of them are normal and don’t carry the unbalanced form of my disorder and then re-implant them into me in hopes that they could possibly be fertile enough to be impregnated. (Holy run-on sentence batman). I did not know I had this until I birthed a son at 17 who was practically blind, unable to eat, severely mentally-retarded and extremely premature. I went into labor 3 months before he was due and had to stay in the hospital for a month dilated at a few centimeters. I was unable to hold him for weeks as he was too fragile, I couldn’t even feed him and he couldn’t even see me…even If I was able to hold him. I watched as they hooked him up to a G-tube, I would sit with him for hours in the NICU. Finally, he was able to come home…as long as nurses and other therapists could come work with him. I was “okay” with that, it was just a bit rough. This was not the way my friend’s lives were who also had children.
My husband at that time, my son’s father, was abusive. He would choke me and push me. He pushed me down the stairs when I was several months pregnant. He had poisoned my mind with thoughts that my friends hated me and my parents didn’t care. I was 18. A couple of months after the birth of my first son, I became pregnant with another. Stupid and reckless, I never really encouraged safe-sex after I had my first son….
Three days before Christmas, while still pregnant, I got a knock at the door from social services. They were going to take my son. They told me that I was depressed and suspected that I was not feeding him because his weight was fluctuating. My life, already having been broken was shattered. I was ordered to parenting classes and to a psychiatrist. I was unable to see my son at all for about a week. He was put into foster care. My parents told me they would help me fight it…that they would get a lawyer and things would be okay. I went to the lawyers office with them and watched them through the little glass divider, talking to him. I never got to talk to the lawyer myself. Eventually, my dad and stepmother got my son…but when they did, all that was said was to let the state run it’s course.
I found out at a hearing that they found out my son was not absorbing his formula, that was why his weight was fluctuating. I pleaded, practically begging to have him returned to me. They didn’t listen. The psychiatrist told me that I was fine, that I have just lived a hard life and that given the circumstances I was handling things okay. The state said that I needed to see a different psychiatrist, one that they appointed. It quickly became apparent that they were making me jump through hoops and that they had no intentions to return my son. I was allowed visitation with him as long as it was supervised, where my parents kept a notebook on exactly how i behaved around him and how often i was there, when i called, and anything else they deemed important. Eventually, my strength was whittled away and I surrendered. I gave him up.
My parents began the paper-work and making their home inspection-ready to adopt him. At the same time I was fending off the state about the little boy growing inside of me. They wanted him too. I had enough fight left to not let them take him too…until the doctors turned to me after looking at the photos of him in the womb and told me that my son had spina bifida, an extra finger and that he was probably going to be still-born. I was destroyed, devastated. My youngest did NOT have spina bifida and he was not still-born. I watched my friends do drugs while their healthy little children played around them. I became bitter, I gave up on religion and put my faith in my own strength or what was left of it.
Today my children are with my parents, they provide for them better than I ever could’ve and I’m grateful for that. It still hurts as much as it did back then, but not as frequently. I look back at all of the shit that I’ve gone through, much of it not mentioned here, and most of the time I feel strong and proud that I’ve had the strength. Not always..it would be inhumane to expect that I would never falter.
…to this: http://theatlantic.tumblr.com/post/8514198657/what-people-dont-understand-about-my-job-barista.
I work at a local coffee shop on a manual espresso machine( not quite as manual as a lever machine but I do not just push a button and let the machine do the work) as well as with a manual grinder. I make drinks non-stop for 8-10 hours a day and have competed in national-level competitions twice. I am proficient in latte art and the production of drinks that make you wish you didn’t finish that last sip. I understand the different subtleties between coffee origins and the different processes of coffee brewing. I have developed an understanding of the importance of coffee and the culture that surrounds it as well as it’s impact on society…I know coffee.
I would say half of the people that come in are nice enough, a quarter of them really appreciate coffee, ten percent really appreciate the experience (both the barista and the coffee), and the last 15 percent are a nightmare to serve. I agree with the OP in some respects about the “nightmare few” customer mentality. All they care about is their perfect drink, perfectly suited to their perfect standards, made in their ideal of a perfect time frame. They have no regard for the human element. This can be expected dealing with a crowd that will gladly pay 4-5 dollars for a drink. It’s almost depressing to think that ONE drink is worth 30 minutes of my time, (Making 8-9 dollars an hour). One beverage, tasty and energy-giving, costs as much as 30 minutes of my labor. Most people understand this, some don’t.
I do not feel that my job is below me, I consider being a Barista to be a great career….respectable but is often without respect. Maybe it’s human nature to treat someone that is serving you something as a servant…after all, we ARE serving you, but as in my case… it is not that I am a button-pushing autobot. Being a Barista is my trade and my art, and I think more respect is due.
Today I feel small. It’s one of those days when I start thinking about each person I meet, or see, or know exists, or don’t know exists…and it has me in a bubble. I feel as if I am a ghost, drifting in and out of people’s lives. Not even as an entity but as a thought, a brief glimpse, a cog in a gear of a machine of each person’s individual life. I feel strangely okay with this…
Day 1 of the 30 Day Art Challenge
A hazy hand gaining lucidity
outstretched through the heavy waters
grasping and tugging at strings
hollow screams remain silent
resonating from a constricted throat
The fog lifts as another hand
wraps around a wrist
diminutive and pale
A loving sort of violence
gives escape from a slow and painful drowning
Self-induced torture under the mask of freedom
