Someone You Didn't Mean to Let Go, But Just Drifted

Ah, my friend Squishy. That is not her real name, of course, it was one of her nicknames. I had one too, but I don't remember what it was, something like Fluffy or Floofy.

Squishy was my best friend growing up. Or at least, those years of growing up where you start forming best-friend attachments. We moved to Squishy's town when I was, oh dear, I'm not sure. Ten or eleven.  She was our pastor's daughter, and we hit it off right away. It was actually one of those times when our parents were like, "Oh, Squishy and Threnody are close in age, they should be really good friends!" And surprisingly, we were. I say surprisingly, because I'm the sort of person that is likely to hear that sort of thing and be like, "Oh, you want me to be friends? Well then I don't like her at all. So there." Squishy taught me to love soccer, and we played in the city league together for two years, spring and fall. When Squishy and I met, we were two years apart in school. She was in 6th grade, and I was in 4th. That was fine, for a year. But then Squishy graduated to the teen class in Sunday School/junior church/Wednesday night and I was very lonely. So I took 5th and 6th grade in the same year so that I could catch up. This might have been the beginning of people around me identifying me as a nerd. But, I caught up, and we had a ton of fun together. We went to camp together, we made plans to go to Northland together for college, we were inseparable. And then of course, my family moved away. I say of course because my family has yet to live in one place more than four years, at least not while I lived with them. Currently they're living in the same house they were when I went to college, but they haven't been there the whole time. So they might have exceeded the four year mark, but not consecutively. So we moved away, and our friendship kind of drifted. I had (still do, actually) what amounts to nearly a phobia about talking on the phone. I hate doing it. I don't know why, but I will avoid talking on the phone if it is in any way possible. So we sent a few letters back and forth, but for the most part we didn't really communicate very much. She was a year ahead of me, and when she graduated high school she went to the University in the town she lived in. I honestly didn't really expect to see her ever again.

But then I went to college. Not Northland, the college my eldest brothers went to. I followed my other brother to Maranatha, jokingly calling us traitors all the while. And I got to my dorm, and unloaded my stuff; I was there early, for soccer tryouts (I was too lazy to do well. I was one of three people who didn't make the team). After about a week, the day came for all the normal students to arrive, and many of the room leaders started putting up little signs with their roommates names on so they would know which room to go to. Imagine my absolute SHOCK when the room leader next to me put up a sign with Squishy's name on it! I mean, she doesn't have an extremely common name. So I called her, right then and there. And she answered, and said something about them unpacking at the hotel, and she would talk to me later, and bye. So anyway, by some magic we ended up at the same college, at the same time, in the same dorm, on the same floor. It was one of those coincidences that never happens, except for that it did.

Squishy and I got along pretty good that year. I helped her though a lot of tough times; her home church (my old church) was treating her father like shit, her mom had to get a job and her dad was working at Walmart as well as being a pastor so that their family had enough to survive on. She persuaded me to join the school band, which was probably the most awesome thing I did at college. We had a good time. The next year I had a job and lived off-campus, so I really didn't see her much. And then I started dating, so my free time was spent hanging out with my boyfriend/fiance and his friends. And we just drifted apart. After I got kicked out, she made an effort to talk to me online a bit, which I appreciated. But I think the last time we talked was when she canceled our plans to meet at Taco Bell for supper one night because she was afraid the deans would find out and punish her (see previous post about the deans making my life hell). I didn't blame her for that, but we never really talked after that.

Sometimes I miss my Squishy. I don't really know what's up with her life, despite the fact that we're still facebook friends, but I wish her all the best in the world.

Nice Broken People

I wonder how many nice people are broken.

I used to be a very self-sacrificing person. I would go out of my way to do things for other people, or be nice to other people, even to my own detriment on occasion. The reasons for that of course were varied, but two main ones come to mind. One, I genuinely enjoy making people smile...hearing "Oh, you didn't have to do that" and responding, "I know, but I wanted to," not from any ulterior motive, but because there is an honest joy in caring for the people around you. In some ways, too, being kind to others fights depression, because it helps you realize that, while depression is focused on self (not in a selfish way, though), making others happy makes you think about something else for a while.

The other reason is because I wanted people to like me, or to love me. Growing up Christian and especially Baptist taught me, purposefully or not, that love is a thing that you earn, and that it is perfectly acceptable to withhold love from someone who is unhappy with you. That may seem odd to you, since Christianity is supposed to be all about loving people no matter what. I don't pretend to understand it at all, but there it is. I thought, that if I was kind and did nice things for people, that they would like me. And, really, I was right. After all, nice people usually have friends, and I did meet a lot of people and made quite a few friends.

Eventually, as I grew, and healed, and became less broken (though by no means whole) I grew less nice. I still enjoyed (and do even to this day) doing nice things for people, and genuinely giving someone else joy still brightens my whole day. But I started doing it less and less. I began to realize that love and friendship should not be and are not based on how many nice things you do for the other person. A friendship that is based only on those things isn't a very deep or lasting relationship. And I learned that a true friend would accept me no matter what.

So now I'm more of a normal person. I'm not a "nice" person, not overtly. Sometimes I'm even kind of an asshole. But I'm more real, and I don't expect people to like or dislike me based on how many nice things I do or don't do for them. I expect people to love me for me. But I wonder, how many people are like I was? How many nice people are broken?

Somebody Who Made Your Life Hell

There were a lot of options for this post, unsurprisingly. The first option that came to mind was good old BnK, and they did indeed make my life hell, the kind of hell that comes from the deepest kind of friendship betrayed. But I already blasted B in a non-challenge post last night, so I figure I can do something else tonight.

After BnK come the deans* of my former college. They put me through the kind of hell that religious fundamentalists come up with when the power they hold goes to their head. I got kicked out of school for giving my fiance a blowjob, plus the other assorted touchings and holdings that tend to come with that sort of activity. He, of course, got kicked out for getting a blowjob. And to this day, I'm not upset about getting kicked out of school. Sexual activity of any kind was prohibited there, and he and I knew that when we signed up. Indeed, it was against our own standards as well as the college's. It was how they treated me after that, that put me through hell.

You see, they ostracized me. They isolated me from everyone I knew. I wasn't from Watertown, I was from Indianapolis. I moved to Watertown for the sole reason of going to school there. So it follows that everyone I knew there, every friend I had, was a Maranatha student or faculty member. They forbade me from coming on campus, aside from the mandatory counseling meetings I was in for almost two years after they booted me out. Why would I agree to mandatory counseling from a school I was no longer enrolled in? Because they were, effectively, holding my life hostage. I struggled with depression far, far more then than I do now. I needed my friends. And they used their power to keep my friends from me. Now you may say, "Well, that is what they do to all expelled students to keep from corrupting current students." Which is what I thought at first, until I compared the way they were treating my fiance, who was kicked out at the same time for the same reasons as I was, to the way they were treating me. It went something like this:

Him: "Hi deans, may I come on campus and hang out in the coffee shop with my friends as long as I want?"
Them: "Sure! And it's nice to see you again! And you don't have to worry about being in dress code."

Me: "Hi deans, can I walk through the coffee shop to say hi to my friends on my way to or from the mandatory counseling you have me in?"
Them: "No. And make sure you're in dress code. And if we see anybody talking to you we will be very, very unhappy."

You see what I mean? This went on for TWO YEARS. About a year after I got expelled, I married my fiance. I should have been eligible to return to school that spring, but they didn't want me to. "Wait until the fall," they said. "You can come back in the fall." So we got married that spring. Then we went to apply for the fall semester. "Oh, you guys are newlyweds, you really need time to get used to being married and all that." Keep in mind, this is the school that had just that year changed their rules to allow students to get married mid-semester. Before that, the rule was only that you couldn't get married within two weeks of the beginning of the semester. We obviously fell far outside that timeline. They really had no reason to keep me out. I had done all the things they requested, had been doing them for nearly two years at that point, and still they treated me like an outcast, requiring me to be in dress code, informing me of what church I was allowed to go to (the one in town, so they could keep an eye on me. Literally. They said "We want you to go to Calvary so that we can keep an eye on you."), not allowing my friends to meet me off or on compus.

If you wanted to know what was the absolute biggest thing that made me first question Christianity, it was the deans. The deans who kept saying "we just want the best for you, Katy." The deans who kept saying, "we know God's will for your life, Katy." The deans who kept saying, "we are your authorities, Katy, even though we kicked you out of our school." The deans who kept saying, "we are showing the love of God in our actions towards you, Katy." Of course, that wasn't the sole reason I started to question my faith, but it was the biggest thing that started me down that road.

So, there you go. Renee Westphall and Doug Richards are two of the biggest hypocrites I have ever known, and they made my life hell.

*you may have noticed that I do not include Rob Cronin in my scathing indictment. That is because, as far as I could observe, he did not agree and did not condone the attitudes or actions of the other two. But for some strange reason, the Dean of Students and the Dean of Women held all the power at my school, the Dean of Men had literally no say at all. For example, if I called to ask a dean if I could come on campus and got him on the phone, I cannot count how many times he would be like, "Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem, just let me go check with Miss Westphall or Mr. Richards." And then he would come back and have to say, "Sorry, but it looks like coming on campus would be a bad idea at this point." He knew there was no reason to keep me away aside from vindictiveness, but he had no say, none at all.

Someone Who Has Made Your Life Worth Living For

There are two sides to this concept. Someone who has made my life worth living in the past, and someone who does so, right now. In the past of course, that was my Love. He was my rock and strong tower, the immovable fortress I always ran to. Now he is almost the opposite; now, he has almost made me life worth leaving.

But I am not going to leave this life, because I have someone worth living for, right now. He is all I truly have in this world, and though he is far, far away, he still gives me a purpose, a reason to keep living, day by day by day. I speak of, course, of my Son. Without him I probably would have given up when my Loves first broke up with me. Without him I certainly would have in the many days since. He is the reason I keep breathing, and though hopefully I will find other reasons to live, and love, and laugh, for now he is my lifeline. I love you, Son.

Something You Hope You Never Have to Do

There aren't many things that spring to mind for this challenge. In fact, I am having trouble thinking of any. Hoping never to have to do something is about the same as fearing something, right? And for me...my fears for the most part have all come true. And it has kind of always been that way for me. In fact, if I start worrying about something, it's less in the sense of "I hope this doesn't happen" and more in the sense of "knowing my luck this is going to happen eventually so I best prepare for it." Some people call this pessimism, and I suppose they have a point. I call it realism. I do not exclude hope or think that only bad things are going to happen, but I do realize that in this completely fucked-up world we live in, bad things can and will happen. 

But for the purposes of this challenge, I should come up with something specific, something I hope I never have to do. Grrr. Literally everything that is coming to mind is something that I've already had to do. I guess I will have to modify it then, to "something I hope I never have to do again." I hope, indeed I pray to whatever gods might hear, that I never have to let a Love go again. I hope that if I ever find a Lover again, that Love lasts. Losing one Love is bad enough, but I've already lost two, and that is more than enough for any lifetime.

B

So I was just listening to the soundtrack from Phantom of the Opera, and there's a bit with the Phantom saying, "if pride will let her [Christine] return to me, her teacher." And you know, normal people look at that and are like, um, it isn't pride keeping her away, idiot. It's common sense and her doing what is best for her because you're a nutcase.

But then I was thinking, that really seems very familiar. And then I thought of it! I had a friend who was like that. We broke off friendship with him (a few times, actually) because we had to do what was best for ourselves, and he was dragging us down, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, etc. But that was pretty much his response, nearly verbatim. It's interesting and crazy how different people view the same thing from different sides.

Of course, I am more like Christine than I want to be, because I attempted to do just that...return. It is all for the best though, trust me on that. This is someone who attempted to turn all my friends away from me, attempted to isolate and control me, who used manipulation and fear and domination to try to keep me on the path HE wanted for my life. All in all, he does sound very like the Phantom, doesn't he?

Something You Hope to Do in Your Life

There are so many things that I could put here, from the unlikely (I want to learn to sword-fight ) to the distant possibility (I want to go skydiving!) to the dream (I want to publish a book!) to the emotional (I want to be happy!) to the romantic (I want to fall in love!) to the scholastic (I want to get a college degree and maybe a doctorate!). Etc. And I think for today, I need a break from emotional, depressed thinking.

So, sword-fighting it is! Now, let me clarify. I'm not talking about fencing, which is fine for some people. And I'm not really talking about big old two-handed broadsword fighting, either. I want to learn something in between, maybe a style with two short swords or a sword and a dagger or even a sword and a shield. And along with that I want to learn sword dancing. The problem is I don't even know if sword dancing is a thing that exists outside my favorite fantasy books. Maybe if it isn't, I should invent it. But that would require the first thing, learning how to fight with a sword, or at least handle one somewhat competently. So, if anyone knows anybody who teaches sword fighting or dancing lessons in the Milwaukee or Madison area (where hopefully I will be eventually), let me know.

I haven't gotten a post written for tonight's challenge yet. I will try to have one or two up tomorrow.

Something You Have to Forgive Someone For

A lot of people have hurt me over the years. I have many scars that I could point to and say, "Your words caused this, your actions drove the blade, your thoughtlessness made me bleed." Most of them I have forgiven, or am forgiving. I find that forgiveness is more of a continual choosing than a one-time decision, don't you? But which of these actions of which of these people shall I write about today?

Bradley and Katherine Menne keep springing to the top of the list. But which of the many ways that they have hurt me should I write about? What do I have yet to forgive them for? I know of their lies and the knives they twisted in my back. I know of the ways they tried to turn my friends from me. And while I may not have forgiven them for everything, still, their actions hold no power over me anymore. If anything it serves as a conversation topic between me and the people they failed to convince of my evilness.

Or perhaps my parents. After all, the way they raised me bordered on abuse, and the way they treated actual abuse caused me problems that I am still dealing with today. And I mean that literally. Today as in this exact moment. But I have said that I forgive them, and though it is a process that even years later I struggle with, I have forgiven them.

The most recent and painful ones are my two Loves. Yet, I have written about them before. And as much as I am able, I have forgiven them, though they have not asked and likely never will. To ask my forgiveness would be to admit that they have been wrong, and I do not see them doing that. Not for a long time, anyway.

I nicknamed the Dean of Women at my school the Great Satan, and she bears the name well. Whose idea was it anyway to give a position counseling girls, many of whom are in relationships, to a woman who hates men? I have not forgiven the Great Satan for what she did to me, nor for what she did to friends of mine. I do not see the need to. It causes me no harm to continue to hate her; on the contrary, every time I think about her I chuckle a little. How furious she would be if she knew! But then, she hated me as well. You should have seen her face the day she saw me in the choir loft, 8 months pregnant with a child conceived out of wedlock. If looks could kill, I probably would have burst into flames. And then she would have been upset about that, because pyrotechnics most definitely do not fit her idea of a good Baptist Sunday morning service. You see? She makes me smile.

But I think the person I need to forgive is my brother. He abused me and started this whole mess spinning. I was not depressed before that. My parents were not so quick to anger. I did not have self-esteem issues stemming from an adolescence of feeling guilty for being abused. In short, life was normal, as normal as life ever is for somebody who had been abused twice already before the age of ten. It is hard to forgive him because he does not think he has done anything wrong. To him what happened between us was no more serious than children playing "doctor." Almost two years ago I asked him why? Why had he abused me? And his answer was along the lines of "I thought you wanted it because of the stuff you did with <neighbor children> and <a cousin>." So I asked him, "So basically you're saying I was an 8-year-old slut?" And he replied something like, "Pretty much." To clarify, I was about four when we moved away from the neighbor children, so whatever happened with them happened when I was four years old or younger. And what happened? I do not know. I remember the event my brother is referring to, somewhat. To be precise, I remember before, and I remember after. But I have no idea what actually happened. Possibly my brother does, but it is not something I feel like asking him at this point in my life. The incident with my cousin I remember much more clearly, and though it was nonviolent and not even especially traumatizing (as much as such things can ever be non-traumatic), it is nothing that would give anyone cause to consider me an "8-year-old slut." It is so hard to forgive him. But unlike other people who I have not forgiven, I feel the need to do so. So there it is. I need to forgive my brother for abusing me, and for acting like doing so is no big deal.

Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For

Oh dear. This is a tough one. I suppose I could go the easy way and take Day One's topic. After all, if weakness is something I hate about myself, isn't it something I need to forgive myself for? But I think not. Weakness is something that needs to be eradicated, not forgiven. I keep running into a problem with these challenges, where I think I need to write about the thing I most hate about myself, or the one thing I most love about myself, or the biggest thing I need to forgiven myself for. But I don't. I can write about anything, big or small. I could completely trivialize these by writing flippantly about tiny things, or traumatize myself by writing epic narratives about the biggest and worst things in my life, but instead I think I will choose to be real.

I need to forgive myself for being a bad mother. Now, we can argue up and down about motherhood and what makes one a good or bad parent, but the truth of the matter is that when it comes to being a mother, I did many things I regret. And for those things, without negating them or trivializing what was wrong with them, I need to forgive myself.

I need to forgive myself for allowing depression to come between me and my love for my son.

I need to forgive myself for attempting to take the easy way out of parenthood by considering and planning to give my son up for adoption.

I need to forgive myself for losing my temper and screaming and swearing at my son, not once but far too many times.

I need to forgive myself for dumping all the responsibilities of motherhood on my Love as soon as she entered our relationship.

I need to forgive myself for being distant emotionally, mentally, and physically from my son when he needed me.

I need to forgive myself for all of these things. One day, I hope my son will forgive me as well.

Something You Love About Yourself

Words. I love the power I have with words. I have the power to move you to tears or make you laugh, to disgust you or enthrall you, inspire or depress you. I have done all these things before, and I shall, hopefully, do them all again.

There are a lot of rules to making words. Do this, do that, transition, topic sentence, thesis, conclusion, etc etc etc. For the most part, however, I ignore those rules. Oh, there are a few I follow religiously (mostly spelling and grammar rules) and some I follow when I feel like it (like the rules for formal/informal writing). There are even a few rules I have made up for myself: whitespace between paragraphs, very few contractions, the most vivid words I can think of.

But for the most parts, my power with words is something instinctual, not contrived. I write the way I do because the words just flow. I run out of words much more quickly when I am trying to fit them to some preconceived pattern. The only exception to this is poetry. Oftentimes with that a couplet starts worming its way through my head, and along the way it picks up some rules. Sometimes it wants to rhyme. Sometimes it most emphatically does not. Sometimes it wants to express itself in two or three syllable lines. Sometimes it wants iambic pentameter (although in general I discover this is what I have written after the fact, not while I am actually writing).

Today, I spent some time reading back through the last year or so of my blog. I wept, I wanted to cut, I wanted to die, I laughed, I marveled, I rose high and fell further. All because of my words. Perhaps it was because they were my own words that they moved me so deeply, but even those who hate me have told me that my words move them.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be good at music. Music is the family tradition, after all. Everyone in my family is musical, except for perhaps my mother, and what she lacks in talent she makes up for in enthusiasm. We are somewhat alike in that way. And while I am competent at playing the piano and clarinet and recorder and singing, I am not talented like the rest of my family. I still haven't gotten over that completely, but somewhere along the way I discovered a talent of my own. Words. I am talented with words in a way nobody else in my family is (though they have their own literary talents, they are different from mine).

Words are my weapon, and I wield them, for good or ill, with power.

Something I Hate About Myself

The first and most obvious thought was depression. But depression is a tricky thing, it is part of me, and yet not part of me. But as I thought about it further, I found a better candidate for this post. It is weakness.

Weakness has caused so many problems in my life. I was too weak to stand up to myself for the principles I once believed in, and got kicked out of school. And then pregnant out of wedlock. And of course there was the cutting, which is as tricky as depression in its own way. On the one hand, you have incredible strength, the strength to make yourself bleed over and over and over again. But on the other hand, you have weakness, the inability and unwillingness to stop yourself from bleeding over and over again, the reluctance and refusal to face down the addiction and free yourself from it. And I have often wondered if being willing to face myself would have brought me to the knowledge of my own sexual orientation sooner. I suppose for that there is no way to tell.

Of course those are not the only problems I have faced because of weakness, especially when coupled with its shadow, laziness. All new mothers struggle, but I struggled far, far more than I needed to. I was too weak to face what needed to be done, and do it. Instead I looked for ways out, tried to run away rather than be strong enough to love. And there are many ways that weakness factored into the dissolving of my marriage and my partnership and the losing of my family and home, perhaps too many to count. I know two people you could ask if you wanted a list.

Weakness shies away from facing up to those things about yourself you do not like, and tells you that you are not strong enough to change those things anyway (or is that depression? Perhaps in this instance they are alike). It faces the challenges and hardships of life and runs away to hide behind razor blades, or words, or doodles, or games, or whatever is easiest. Weakness looks at "must" and says "I can't." Weakness says it is too hard to become strong. But it is strength that I need and become strong I must.

Thirty Days of Truth

So, nearly a year ago, a friend of mine started a "thirty days of truth" challenge on his blog. I watched, sort of, and was mostly glad it wasn't me. Of course, it didn't help that someone I hated was doing the same thing on the same blog, so I couldn't read one without running into the other. The challenge fizzled partway through, and I'll admit I was immature enough to find some amusement in that. At that point in my life, I was keeping up with three or four different blogs. I never lacked something to write about, and I almost saw such a challenge as a crutch for those people not good enough to come up with something for themselves. Now my friend has started the challenge on his new blog, and rather than being dismissive, I am intrigued. And besides, if such a thing is a crutch, it is a crutch that I am in need of right now. So I will attempt to write thirty days of truth. I will, as I always have, put my heart and soul on these pages for you to crush, or ignore, or love, according to your various natures.

Day 01 : Something you hate about yourself.

Day 02 : Something you love about yourself.

Day 03 : Something you have to forgive yourself for.

Day 04 : Something you have to forgive someone for.

Day 05 : Something you hope to do in your life.

Day 06 : Something you hope you never have to do.

Day 07 : Someone who has made your life worth living for.

Day 08 : Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

Day 09 : Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

Day 10: Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn't know.
Day 11 : Something people seem to compliment you the most on.

Day 12 : Something you never get compliments on.

Day 13 : A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough days. (write a letter.)

Day 14 : A hero that has let you down. (letter)

Day 15 : Something or someone you could not live without, because you have tried living without it.

Day 16 : Someone or something you definitely could live without.

Day 17 : A book you have read that changed your views on something.

Day 18 : Your views on marriage.

Day 19 : What do you think of religion?

Day 20 : Your views on drugs and alcohol.

Day 21 : (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

Day 22 : Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.

Day 23 : Something you wish you had done in your life.

Day 24 : Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)

Day 25 : The reason you believe you’re still alive today.

Day 26 : Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

Day 27 : What’s the best thing going for you right now?

Day 28 : What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?

Day 29 : Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

Day 30 : A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.