Invisible life of an aspiring rebel

How sad your life looks now; even though you never knew anything better.

You are so thirsty. Full of a painful longing for things you can barely comprehend and will never be fully revealed to you, with your simple mind and inconsequential talent for recitation.

And your revulsion does not drive you anymore because it has turned inwards.

You’re scared of nothing. You’re scared of everything.

Death is such a welcome concept.

Life is just a ridiculous suggestion from someone who was barely following the conversation.

How do other people function, you wonder? You could never really understand. How do they get up every morning? And more importantly…why?

Yes, you would always need a reason.

Well. Good luck with that.

After some hours of semi-serious contemplation, I have concluded my mild depression is caused by my easily disappointed nature. I’m restless and always expecting too much out of life, when really life is just this, just living.

I think sometimes I get too philosophical.

You know, I should be sleeping. Because tomorrow morning I’m supposed to go by the university and get some papers for my parents, and some notes, and a couple of books from near there, but it has to be early cause they only stay open till one.

I hated high school. I don’t know if you can tell, but I wasn’t really miss popularity, if you catch my drift. Always had my nose stuck in some book, plus my conversation skills are-like- zilch. You know the type, teacher’s pet, sat in the front, got picked last in gym, yada yada yada…

I hate that I fit in a mold. I mean, you think of me, original is my exact antonym. Like, if you look it up, there’s a little picture of me right there…see it?

By the way, I’d like to state I don’t photograph well, so keep your comments to yourself.

Mood: sad
Music: “Long ride home” by …can’t recall at the moment…ah, yeah, Patty Griffin; “I go inside and all is silent/ it seems as empty as the inside of me…”

Maybe this is really a long time coming teen rebellion. Maybe it’s my Holden Caulfield moment. Maybe I have self destructive tendencies. Maybe I am scared of moving forward, scared of taking on any kind of responsibilities because I’m afraid I’m going to end up with a life that’s as disappointing as my parents’.

That actually sort of makes sense.

Oh, I’ll try and come off as this intellectual person, all into books, and culture and the theater and all. And I am into all these things. But well so are a lot of people. And because I did well in school my family was always saying how smart I am. It’s not about that. It’s not like I’m a genius. My IQ is like 133 which means one in ten-or maybe twenty, can’t recall- people are as smart as I am. So, no Nobel prizes coming my way. But as I was saying, school is NOT about intelligence. It’s about dedication. I had plenty of that.

Not anymore.

You know the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think I’m just panicking. And I’m not trying to trivialize anything. It’s a big kind of panic. A paralyzing kind. You know, I should really tell my therapist. This could be a break through.

Mood: tired

Music: Come undone by Robbie Williams (“I’m not afraid of dying I just don’t want to/ if I stop lying then I’ll just disappoint you…”)

I am alone. I don’t love anyone. Hardly anyone loves me. My father. Sometimes I think my mother loves me too. But then I reconsider. That’s the list. I could die and it would hardly be noticeable. Again, only my parents would feel the difference. I lead such a quiet life; it has no impact on anyone. Imagine that.

It’s like…I’m a ghost. I’m the girl that always sits in the front of the classroom, always gets picked last in gym class, always…always follows a pattern, sticks to a routine, fits into a mold.

I can’t study. I just can’t. And I feel useless; like a failure. Like…I’m postponing my life or something, just because it’s not going to be pretty or pleasant. Yeah. But I realize that nothing is going to change. I won’t wake up and suddenly feel motivated. I’m just delaying the inevitable.

Sometimes it feels like I’m waiting for life to catch up.

Mostly it feels like I’m hoping that death will.

I’m functioning, just barely. I sleep, I eat, I shower, I talk, I walk up and down the stairs to get a glass of water. I even shop. It’s just that I don’t really care for any of it.

There’s something to be said about going through life with nothing to lose; nothing you value or no one you love. There’s no fear of death. The only thing to be scared of is pain.

And there’s always someone trying to convince you that you just have to be patient, a little more, a little longer, because your happiness is just around the corner. And you wait and wait and you hope and you do it again and again and again and again and again, and you hold on to your desperate waiting and you try and try and try and it never makes a fucking difference.

God, these entries are going to be so popular after I drive off a cliff.

I hate how my mother expects me to trust her after letting me down again and again. Oh, there’s always an excuse, and it somehow always involve my father and how he’s not giving her enough money, and it’s certainly never her fault and she apologizes and cries her eyes out and promises to try not to disappoint me. Whatever. Lies.

It’s sad really when you have noone to turn to, nobody you can trust, and nobody who really cares enough to ask about your problems and be willing to hear about them. Oh sure my mother never forgets to ask, but would she listen? No one likes to realize they’re failing. They say the people who stick around are the ones who care (Veronica Mars, season 2, episode 6) but sometimes it looks like my mother sticks around because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Am I supposed to feel loved and cherished that I’m someone’s choice when they’re basically trapped into it? And my mother, ever The Victim, looks at me with a pretentiously understanding smile, as if I’m too young and selfish and silly and “going through a phase” and I’ll “grow out of it” and someday I’ll look back and recognize all the sacrifices she’s made, and someone call the Pope to have her registered as a contemporary saint.

She says she put her children first and stayed (self sacrificing altruistic saint that she is), but you have to wonder. Would we have turned out as problematic as we are if she’d just left us the fuck alone? It was like lessons in Nazism only instead of hating Jews or homosexuals or whatever we were learning to hate our father. Lesson one: your father hates you. Lesson two: your mother is the kindest woman on earth and you shall do her biding. Lesson three: your father is a money-making machine and he never gives you anything because he spends it on his mistress. Lesson four: your father beat up your mother (he hit her once or twice to my knowledge, but she didn’t take it lying down). Lesson five: your father used to beat you up until one day your mother grabbed a knife and threatened to kill him “if he ever laid a finger on her children ever again” (the fact that she waited a couple of years to decide to say something is of course exonerated due to her decision to stop The Tyrant from using his belts on his SIX and FIVE YEAR OLD daughters).

Fools and hypocrites, the both of them. The difference is my father actually believes what he did was for our benefit, while I am certain my mother knows that a lot of her actions were only meant to promote her petty agenda. That didn’t stop her at all. Can you wrap your mind around it? She KNOWINGLY hurt her children and continues to do so. A million times I have explained the last five years that it HURTS me to hear her call my father names. Does she stop? Does she even TRY??

Of course not.

Crash course in life: nobody will care. The only person you may rely on is yourself.

Your parents won’t care and your so-called friends won’t care and your acquaintances won’t care and your neighbors will most certainly not care.

Lesson recap: you are alone.

Mood: resigned

Now playing in the background: Hum Halleluiah by Fall Out Boy (“I thought I loved you…it was just how you looked in the light”)

mood: amused
currently watching: the greek version of Ugly Betty

Check out what I found in someone else's lj account:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together.

It was so much fun I made a dozen of them!Here's some:

Went to the university today but I couldn’t get the papers my mother needed so I have to go back Thursday. I got the coupons for the books for this semester though so I just have to go searching for them all over town. At least there is no rush, I have till June 16. That’s when the exams start. The exams. Hmm. Haven’t thought about that much yet. Sucks, but I don’t really feel like studying. It’s frustrating, cause I don’t know if it’s the subject or my own stupidity and laziness. Either way, I’m fucked. Big time. Gods. I’m such a loser.

I just had a fight with my sorry excuse of a sister. Ms Bitch of the Century and Proud of It threw a fit over coming into my room (which sadly houses her computer along with my laptop) and finding out I had shut down her computer. It’s 9pm and she left it open when she left at 16:30. I mean, the buzzing was driving me up the wall. There’s all sorts of radiation coming off that thing, and its right next to my bed so give me a break here. She started screaming that she FORBIDS me to touch her computer again, or she will use my laptop. I pointed out my laptop has a password she doesn’t know, so she said she’ll just destroy it. I pointed out dad would put her in an early grave, so she said she would just rip off the internet equipment and that’s that. I said fuck you if you do, fuck you if you don’t.

Queen Bitch said we’ll see.

She sat down for about 10 minutes, and then got up and left to go sit in her room. She’s on the phone, and let me tell you, I bet she’s just doing this to prove a point or something, that I haven’t got the balls to shut it down again, but FUCK HER if she thinks she’ll win this power struggle or whatever. I’m not touching a thing I’ll just close down every fucking program she has running and play dumb when she comes back.

Gods, you’d think with all the fuss she’s making, she needs the pc to plan world domination; she just talks to her friends and boyfriend all day. Which she can do over the phone.

On a lighter note, since i went all the way downtown I figured I might as well check out a couple of stores. There's this nice big bookstore that opened recently across from the house of parliament, it’s called Public. It’s more of a department store(?) now that I think about it, it’s got electronics and stuff too, and cds. Anyways, I bought Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, it’s a comic book slash memoir about her life in post Islamic revolution Iran. There’s a film too, came out earlier this year. Whatever. AND I got a book by Zadie Smith, it was shortlisted for the Booker prize 2005, it’s called “On Beauty”. Haven’t had a chance to start it yet. I considered “The reluctant fundamentalist” for a while there because a) it’s got a friggin’ awesome title, b) summary sounded rather exciting and c) you read books like that and you get intellectual bragging rights and piss off everyone you know while giving them an inferiority complex. Eventually I just let it go cause I had seen it in my local bookstore 7$ cheaper.

When joy comes
I’ll hide it firmly in my hands
Secretly
So it can’t be lost again

I just roughly translated lyrics from a greek song Queen Bitch (yeah, still not over that) had on just now. It’s called “Our Sorrow [is a] Celebration”. Before that it was the new Britney Spears.

mood: depressed and annoyed

soundtrack: "Staring at the sun" , U2 ("I'm really great but there's something missing...")

mood:

music: "Welcome to my life" by Simple Plan

I haven’t been down to the university in a while and my mother is bugging me about it constantly because she needs some paper for her lawyer. It’s like every time she talks to me: “Honey, when will you get the paper I told you about? I really need it for my lawyer…” Well, if you need it so bad, woman, GO FUCKING GET IT.

And while my mother was out, my sister called me into her room. This is the conversation that followed.

Helen: “This summer we’re moving.”

Me (confused): “I thought we had a two year lease for this place.”

Helen: “Nothing’s written in stone. And the house next to Vicky’s is for rent. (A/N: Vicky is Helen’s best friend.) You could have the basement; it’s got its own separate entrance with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, two bedrooms. When you start working you’ll give us 300$ for your expenses and we can make the rent. Its 850.”

Me (even more confused): “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize I was looking for a job.”

Helen: “Mum’s going to tell you soon. She needs you to start working, because now that you’re 18 dad doesn’t pay alimony for you. So we’re 300$ short. Either you find a job or sign a petition you need the money for your college studies. But she knows you won’t want to fight with dad over it, so she hasn’t asked you yet. You’re gonna have to find a job, anyway.”

Me: “Why would I find a job and give the money to you and mum instead of finding my own place?”

Helen: “Because that would be more expensive.”

Me: “Dad would help me. (A/N: This is partially true. Dad has offered many times to let me move in with him, or my grandmother who lives alone. And trust me, I pick living with my grandmother free of charge to living with mum and Helen for 300$ any day. And if it came to me getting a job, he would definitely help me out. I think.) And if it comes to me getting a job (A/N: this is currently something I don’t want to do) I will leave and you wouldn’t need such a big place. So there you go.”

Helen didn’t exactly like how the conversation played out. What Helen wanted was me agreeing I would get a job and give 300$ to mum each month for rent or whatever, so she could move in next to her friend and have a room that’s even bigger than the one she has now (it’s the biggest bedroom of our place) with its own private bathroom. But I would have to be several kinds of dumb to agree to this. I mean, living with mum and my sister is impossible. I really want to move out, but I want to finish college before getting a job and an apartment. So, if circumstances were to pressure me into getting a job, the silver lining would be I would finally get away from them.

If they’re so desperate for money, they should cut back on their own expenses. I hardly spend anything. Mum only has to pay for my food and stuff. Not clothes or money to get me by daily. I get those from dad. I NEVER ask mum for money. I ask for my favorite chocolate bars and shampoo and stuff. Not money. Fuck, my mum owes me 60$ two weeks now. And I haven’t even asked for it. Because I didn’t need it. That’s how fucking little I spend. But both my mother and my sister smoke. Mum leaves 5$ for Helen every day to buy her cigarettes and stuff to eat. And she always asks for more by the end of the day. Plus she goes out all the time with her friends, so she needs more money for that. And even if she’s going to a friend’s house she takes a cab and not the bus like I do, so she spends even more. Does it seem fair?

I’m not saying any of the things she asks for are unreasonable. I’m just saying you have to adjust to your situation. You don’t have money? Then don’t blow what little you get. 5$ a day for five days a week is 100$ a month. That’s pretty much what I get from dad. If she didn’t smoke, she would have all of that to spend on whatever the hell it is she wants. I mean, I have learnt how to get by on that.
Why can’t friggin’ Princess Helen do it?

P.S. Why would I want to live in a fucking basement??? I'm not count Dracula, for fuck's sake.

I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to study. I mean, I haven’t even tried it since last June. It’s scary for me, bookworm extraordinaire. It’s scary for everyone who knows me. I just don’t feel like studying, though.

I always thought college would be this heaven on earth. Interesting people and exciting opinions, riveting lectures on Europe’s political climate, a challenge. But it’s just plain boring. The students are conceited and self absorbed, hardly inclined to learn but always up to showing off. Others are just there, somehow already resigned to their fate, a fate that closely resembles the previous three years of high school where your instincts of survival altered to scream READ instead of BREATHE.

What happened to the promise of an actual life after years of excruciating study? I always thought it was okay to neglect my social life as long as I made sure I got into the university I wanted. After that, I always thought that things would be easier. But how do you escape years of suspended existence? Is it even possible?

How do you heal from the scars of a self imposed exile? I spent the last two years of high school hardly talking to any of my class mates, except maybe to borrow a pen. I even stayed inside the classroom during breaks because I had no one to talk to. Not that anyone noticed. Or cared.

It was feeling so invisible that had me thinking of suicide. I used to wonder how long after I died someone would think to ask one of the teachers. How long it would take for them to realize that not one of them actually knew the quiet and withdrawn girl that was top of the class. Would someone feel guilty realizing that they could have helped? That maybe by trying to get to know me they would have made a difference in whether I lived or died?

But that hardly matters now. I know I am too wary of pain to actually try. Unless it becomes convenient. I have prescription pills, but I am afraid they are rather mild, and I would wake up in the hospital with tubes coming out of me and my stomach recently pumped. God, I hate hospitals. They serve as an unwelcome reminder of the most appalling limitations of mortality; for me it’s hardly death, but rather the unavoidable decay of the flesh and modern society’s constant need to postpone it- indefinitely.

I wonder…does a person’s room reflect their personality? It would make for very interesting conclusions, if that were the case.

My room, for example, has gone through various stages and transformations. A couple of years ago, it was creepily tidy to a point it barely looked inhabited, and was often mistaken for the guest room.

Then the schoolwork piled up along with my escalating panic about getting into college. I acquired new habits, like throwing my clothes on a chair, stuffing any and all books, CDs, and irritating objects on my desk, and conveniently forgetting about electric vacuums.

Even my getting into college proved insufficient in restoring my previously obsessively tidy nature. My 150 euro handbags are still constantly resting on a couple of shoeboxes. Right now there are four glasses of water on the stupid desk, along with a two days old bottle of mineral water my sister conveniently forgot all about. Her own handbag is on the chair on top of a pair of Levi’s, a black staff and co. jacket, a white t-shirt with Red Hot printed on the front, a heart shaped pillow and the book I’m supposed to be reading to get my driver’s license.

And don’t even get me started on the bookcase. The horror.

P.S. I can hear one of Helen’s friends explaining why she wants to kill herself. Drama, drama, sniff, sniff. I’m not sure this is helping my mood at all.