The Merry Maid

I feel it all.

Lately I've been tugged in so many directions. It seems like everyone has a distinct idea of who I should be, of their ideal version of me. I am trying to know myself, and I seek to come to terms with who I am and what it is that drives me. I seek a greater self awareness as I search within myself. I have begun to face my demons, fears, struggles-- the things I have buried, ignored, or never really seen. I've always felt a darkness within myself, something that I can't really explain. I am a pleasant person; I pride myself on my outwardly sunny disposition. I know what effect I have on others.

Still, on my journey, a lifelong one really, I need to confront my darker self and integrate it into my public self. Too often, I smile and feel as though I'm playing a part in public, and yet at home in the dark, I succumb to broken sobs. I feel like I feel things so extremely, so fully, and while it has its perks that are mainly manifested in my writings, the peaks and valleys are grating and exhausting. I am fully willing to experience and transform these emotions, but I seek to integrate them and stop living two separate lives with two separate selves.

I yearn to fully understand myself and to learn to avoid that crash that comes with the peaks and valleys.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Listening to: Samson, Regina Spektor

be.

I used to read psychology books as a child, trying to find myself in the mental disorders, to categorize my ailments and to find a logical explanation behind my behavior, why I felt as I felt and behaved as I did. I never did find the perfect cure-all, the grand explanation I so sought.

I've since moved on; I read biographies of great people, of mysterious people, of those far more alluring than I. Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Jim Morrison, Abraham Lincoln, RFK. I try to find myself in their greatness, categorize myself in their ranks, in an attempt to find how I can be more like them. Being Amber just doesn't feel like enough at times!

listening to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86tDEuoOSko

it's nice to love and be loved, but I'd rather know what God knows.

They all seemed to enjoy it enough, but I never really felt anything. There was no thrill in it, no spark. It was just oh, we are kissing now. And now your hands are moving down my sides. Often I worry that maybe I'm not programmed the right way. Holding hands is nice, hugging can be nice, and a kiss in theory sounds lovely with the right person, though nobody seems to be right. The boys that I have known seem quick to hold hands and to define things, to put labels on them, and to jump into relationships mode, to settle down for the hell of it. To me, the ideal relationship would be a simple one of friendship and laughter with that spark, that fire. Of course I'm being an idealist. 

It seems to me that everything resolved around sex and dating and that if you're not dating, the number one question is why, or the assumption is that you must be dying to jump into a relationship. Given this epiphany, I was watching "The Rat Race" and relishing in the magic that is Tony Curtis. Sure, I had Tony Curtis and a hot plate of pasta, but dating, truly, was what a woman of my age should be doing. That night, I resolved to say yes and to put myself out there.

As if on cue or perhaps as a cosmic joke, I was asked out on a date the very next morning. Ordinarily  I'd have smiled and said perhaps another time, or something along those lines, but nonetheless I said yes, something greatly outside of my comfort zone. That week, I managed to wrangle up three dates with different boys and told myself that I was going to experience single life and dating if it killed me.

Well, now the week is over, and here I am as blasé as ever about the entire thing. Maybe I really am programmed differently than other girls my age, than women in general, but honestly, give me pasta, give me movies, and I'm happy. I don't want to settle down. I'm nearly finished with university, the world is at my fingertips, so why nest? And why is it such a stigma to admit that yes, you are single and no, you aren't looking. At the most, I want to go out and have fun, but it seems like the boys in this town are looking for serious relationships which, in theory sound nice and intense and wonderful, though it seems that the recipients are interchangeable. The general feeling I get is that anyone will do so long as one has somebody, and that isn't enough for me.

I'm going to stop typing now. I feel as though my thoughts are running away from me, and I'm fluttering from topic to topic.

listening to
pawn shop blues, lana del rey

Clarksville.

Today at work (I'm a receptionist), a young man called to transfer his information from the Clarksville office to a new office in New York. He laughed over the phone as he explained that Tennessee was just a bit too far from his new New York home to be plausible. I paused. I wanted to ask him what it was like, to really leave this little town behind. Granted I've left in the past, but with university, I'm never gone for too long. The idea of leaving my town behind and going somewhere so vast, somewhere where nobody really knows me terrifies me. It's scary but in a way that leaves me short of breath. I daydream of travelling and of seeing great things, even not-so-great things, even mundane things, in faraway places. I'm terrified of growing older and becoming someone that I won't recognize.

I remember casually bringing up my plans to relatives. "Oh right," they would smirk. "I said I was going to travel, too. But shit happens. Life happens."

There's no great time to pack up and go, but honestly, what better of a time then now while I'm young and unattached? I don't want to grow old and become one of those people who smirks and says "Oh, I said I would travel, too."

no surprises here.

Behind it all was that ever-lasting feeling of a void. I could listen to my records, I could light candles and entertain the idea that the ghosts of those before me lingered, and if I really tried, I could wrap my arms around myself and tighten my chest. When I did this, I could almost feel a warmth inside of myself, but it was fleeting. The feeling of the warmth was a tease as it vanished and I was left colder than ever. 

There was a feeling of having felt this way before many times, and sometimes I scared myself of the notion of how little had really changed since the last time I’d felt this way. In the back of my mind, I knew that I had friends to call, to talk with, but the idea of opening the bottle and trying to make another person understand seemed unfeasible. The utter mention of it to my own mind would never fail to me shivers and as a gift, a lump in my throat that seemed permanently lodged. I housed a type of sadness, a feeling of never being known, a feeling of distancing myself from relationships so that I might never lose myself to the masses. The thought of giving myself to a single person petrified me so, and for that reason I never did. I regret my choices, but as I've lived in a certain way for so long, it has become my nature. I am cold at night, and the loneliness creeps inside of me. I struggle to ignore it, to shut it out and to tell myself that the things the darkness says to me are inept, that all of the things I dislike in myself are of my own doing and that perhaps another could see them some day and welcome such imperfections and me nonetheless. Again, the ceaseless void envelops me. I worry that I’m difficult to get to know, or rather more so that no one will care so as to try. This ache that I feel seems to pull warmth and hope along with it, and I struggle to find the words to describe myself on such an evening as tonight.

listening to: No Surprises, Regina Spektor (Radiohead Cover)

settle down.

In this town, it seems as though folks are so preoccupied with settling down that they genuinely don't care who they're settling with. We're all so young, so why rush these things? I understand what it is to be swept away by passion, by stolen kisses and chapped lips, all the things that embody new love, but truly, we are so, so young. There's so much out there waiting for us, so much to experience. There's a difference between settling down and being with someone. Don't just grab a body to have a body. Wait until it's the right person, until you're absolutely sure of it deep in your bones.