Travels through a chaotic subconscious

It’s pouring down rain outside. Finally, it seems like it’s only rained once or twice so far this season, and where I live in california, that’s unusual. I guess I’ve been waiting for it, craving it in a way.

Maybe even sympathetic weather is better than nothing.

I woke up depressed and very nauseous this morning. The funny thing is it sounds like I’m pregnant, but I’m not. These symptoms come from taking a morning after pill, to avoid becoming pregnant. I can’t take birth control regularly because I just throw up any nutrients that I try to force myself to injest. And even though my boyfriend and I have been together more than 4 years, we use condoms everytime. But condoms, they do break, especially if you have to use the ones from planned parenthood becuase you ran out of good ones. Ironic morning so far.

Besides that it hasn’t been so great either. I had a phone conference with a public defender in another county because I have a court date on the 18th. It’s for driving uninsured, unregistered, having a liscense plate lamp out and a joint. All because I took some weed to my aunt who lives an hour away, who has cancer and a med. marijuna liscense, but can’t afford the steep prices at the cannibus club store. I really just wanted to see her, too, because she is really the only family I have nearby. She and I never really had a lot of contact either, but we are close, though I hadn’t seen her in years since before that night. She’s my mom’s sister, so after my mom died I pulled away from her for a while becuase it hurt too much to see her. Well, I screwed up, because the second I bought my first car I wanted to see her, so I drove almost an hour away before it was completely legal, and on the way home I got pulled over. So I gotta face the music…

All of the things that are going on right now, and now this I have to fix, it just seemed unbearable this morning. I try so hard to be strong and positive, then something breaks in me and I feel overwhelmed. I sat and cried, yelled at my boyfriend when he was trying to give me advice, and the fought with him some more. All of a sudden, I got a strong urge to puke, so I did, then realized that it was the pills. Those damn morning after pills. Once I realized how bad I was overreacting, I told him how sorry I was and he understood. After he left I sat a long while looking outside onto my rainsoaked patio, all my plants yellow and losing their leaves, and suddenly I saw franny. I pictured this woman I adored, who was like a mother to me, who passed away a couple years ago, showing me…. that it’s just a season.

It won’t always be like this, she seemed to say. Spring will come and you’ll be able to plant some petunias for me. Things will get better if you believe. I picture her planting her petunias into driftwood logs outside her one bedroom apartment, loving blowing the dirt off their petals, so they could shine. I remember the time we had a sudden hailstorm in the spring, and her fragile petunias were demolished. She cried, too and I felt for her. What a waste of beauty and happiness. Suddenly she brightened, and said, “ you know I don’t think I’ll plant petunias this year.” I said, ” but franny you love your petunias! everyone in the apartments does. They brighten this place up! don’t give up on them!” and she just smiled her sweet sad smile and said, “it’s just time for something new.” She was right, she never got to see another spring. No one even knew she had cancer until she died, she didn’t want us treating her like she was going to die.

I understand frannie. I get it now. Thank you for showing me that life is too short. Spring will come for me, I just have to wait.

I will be able to fix my car. I will be ABLE to pay the rent this month. The electricity will NOT shut off. Food will magically appear in the fridge.  I WILL BE OK.

No. I’m not going crazy. I just find that writing positive thoughts seems to keep them more sincere. I try to affirm them in my head, but they grow less and less confident sometimes, until they are downright weak and no longer seem viable.

 I want to be positive, I really do. I know I can’t blame my parents for everything, but I feel like my negative additude really is compliments of my father. I feel like instead of buliding my confidence, he squashed it, as if he was afraid that I had too much. I always felt people in my life were trying to prepare me for disappointments, no one ever saying, ‘don’t give up!’ I really need that now, because when it rains it pours. And there doesn’t seem to be anyone in my life I believe anymore when they try to make me feel better.

Maybe it’s bad karma for bitching about being broke yesterday. Hatin’ on everyones’s happy holiday spirit. Whatever it is, it blew up in my face, smoke and all. (meaning my steering wheel in my car). Something shorted out, and now my heater, blinkers, windows, radio, gages and lights don’t work. Also, my steering wheel makes grinding noises when I turn it, which is suddenly very difficult to do. Lovely. I can’t work my current job without a car. Getting around is 50 % of the job. I guess I can’t worry too much about that until I found out how much it will be to fix it, but someone who’s been a mechanic for 25 years told me he guesstimates thousands. THOUSANDS.

I don’t suppose he means thousands of cents, do you think….?

Does the whole think positive, and it will be positive, thing work if it all comes out sarcastisally (even in my head) ?

falalalalalala….

I know, I may sound a little bitter, but I am really so fed up with this crap. How does a religious holiday get reduced down to stressful, pointless, media-fed materialism? I do enjoy giving gifts to people, and the thoughtfulness involved. But I hate how it feels like if you don’t give someone a diamond or a benz for christmas than you aren’t showing them that you love them. Now, I am perfectly aware how untrue that is, it just bothers me that that’s what the media wants us to believe.

I am not boycotting christmas, and I am not bah-humbugging. But I want to tell everyone that I can that it doesn’t have to be this way… why does the spirit of thoughtfulness and giving have to be confined to a season, or for most, a day?

I am making all my gifts this year, and I feel like they are going to be some of the most beautiful ones I have given. For a while I did stress like everyone else, how broke I am, and how good it might feel to give someone their equivalent of a benz or a diamond…. but no more. The most important thing is letting your family know that you love them, celebrating the day that christ was born, and I can do that without spending money. It’s just funny to me that it took me being completely broke to realize it. There’s freedom in not fighting crowds, running up bills and not obsessing over the perfect gift.

I only wish I had my family, this time of year… my mom passed away, my sister is in stationed turkey, my dad… well he’s off on a crank binge as usual, living in a van somewhere. Sometimes he stays with my grandparents… only to sleep and eat and shower, when he does… and I guess I could go there because I really love my grandparents. But if he’s there… the negative energy he provides just eats away at me. Too bad I can’t block it out like my grandma does. I guess she’s only capable because he’s her son, and because she’s from a generation of repressed energies.

That’s why I’m so thankful for my boyfriends family… they are a real family. What is a real family, you might say? One with unconditional love for eachother, one who knows the real meaning of family, sticking together through everything, not bailing when times get tough. Eight people in his immeadiate family, and they love eachother, would do anything with eachother. That fascinates me. I want to be a part of it. I have been with my boyfriend almost four years, and I want to have his name, erase all the pain that is associated with my own. And while I know marriage should not be rushed, I know he’s what I want. That’s what I want for christmas.

A real family.