Sticking Like Butter on a French Chef's Pan

I remember when I first learned how to ride a bike. I got on and went. No reservations. All I desired was the wind flowing through my tangled mop of hair. Ready to see the world outside of my small neighborhood. It was a strange and exhilarating experience, one that I obviously remember today, 15 years later. My desires are checked now. Always holding back due to the horrible idea of being judged by those closest to me. Last night I had a dream about a land of great terror and beauty. Two opposites mixed within itself. In the dream, I was myself but as a great explorer. I had doctor capabilities and was checking the natives for disease. It was somewhere in the jungle. All I was allowed to do was to check for disease but a young child from the village came to me under a secret promise to her dying mother. She told me that the disease was fake, that they were pretending to get the people who were overtaking their village for profits out. They had a beautiful culture full of color and love. The young girl walked with a grace that few could attain in our own culture. She held her head high and was afraid of no one. She was strange to me in that she stuck by my side as I confronted the "colonists" who had invaded their village. She had so much faith in me that even while sleeping, I felt pride and hope fill my chest. A dream girl had given me what very few in reality had, faith in me. As I approached the colonists one had turned around and he turned out to be my brother. He took me in hand and said "Audrey, get out of here before you get sick. " I told him I was already sick and pretended to cough. In terror he tried to get me to leave but I stayed with the villagers. We had convinced them to leave the village before it spread to them. I wrote my brother a note telling him the truth be he only got it when he boarded the ship that would take him to the next village to overtake, the backup profit generating commodity.
This dream dosnt tell me alot like some of my other dreams. It is one, however, that I remember vividly. It brought a physical feeling while sleeping. I feel so stuck in this model that I made myself. Listen to others and their opinions. Stick through this and you'll make it. That is not how I was when I was young and happy. Although a long time ago, it still holds true. I shall try spontinaity. That sounds good to me.

When breaking in mochasins, dont forget the time of old.

I don't have a belief system that everyone follows. Never have I understood the categories and prescriptions of organized religion. I do, however, believe in chance and sometimes even luck. My day started out at 12:01 am with a strange call. A boy I had known from the third grade called me and wanted to wish me a merry Christmas. Thats not all however. He preceeded to tell me that he had a crush on me all throughout high school. I hated high school. He told me that he was still kicking himself for not asking me out. How do you respond to a statement like that? I wasn't sure either. I thought that was my quota of strange for the day. Sike. Three years ago, I was blessed with my first awkward make out with a boy from Ohio at a beach house with my familly. We talked for a few months afterwards but after that, I thought all connection was gone. Ten minutes after Paul called, Casey decided to bless me with his conversation and see how I was doing. The fact that he called after Paul was only the beginning of that strange and quite odd conversation. After I hung up, I fell straight asleep, hoping that maybe that was all a strange and unfourtunate coincidence. Wrong. Two boys who I had kept in touch with over the course of the semester decided to profess their desire to go out on a date with me on the same day. I however was so flabergasted by all of this that I seriously thought I was going insane. How could it be, while I am in my darkest and deepest depression that boys suddenly found me appealing? How backwards is that! I never wanted their attentions, all I want is someone. A signifigant other to share my laughter with. All of these boys are so nice but I really find none of them attractive. What should happen then that the one boy that I have had feelings for for about five years should come over to my house while I had just hopped out of the shower and looked like a sea monster from the depths of a frozen lake. The one person that makes me feel safe by just glancing and smiling at me. I broke my own heart over him and that was the greatest shock of the day. Seeing his face and feeling the feelings of old. It truthfully hurt to see him. After that, I needed back up from my partner in crime. She understood the magnitude of my craziness at that point so she wisked me away to the outer reaches of williamsburg and comiserated with me. On our journey through the crazy holiday shopping, we stopped in a movie store to stock up for the hangout with one of the boys that has weaseled his way into my attention, if for a short period of time. Who just happend to work there but someone I knew from high school. Tom, a very good person. Someone with a caring personality and the looks to compliment it. A boy that I could easily like. Katie thought maybe that I should, in her words, "jump on that boy". In reality, he has a girlfriend and I can watch him from afar and just be friends. After that, I thought my mind was going to say "fuck you Audrey" and jump out and find another human to torture. No such luck. Walking in somewhat of a daze throughout the one place where Williamsburg bumps into each other, Target, I of course slam into a girl who I went to elementary school who knew my mother. She instantly stopped and stared. I almost didn't recognize her. She was kind and caring and I loved her for all her comments through the years. She loved my mother because my mom had been a woman to love. When we literraly bummped into each other, she immediatily said, "Oh my god, I thought you were your mom for a second there." I hung my head and almost cried in the middle of the makeup section where beauty is held on a pedestool and tears are shunned. After that encounter, I was in a daze for the reast of the evening. Chris tended to lean on my annoyance side and he knew it. I didn't care. I still don't.
This never happens to me. This attention I've received. I usually have days where maybe I will see some people and we exchange "pleasentries" and move on. No such fucking luck that day. Maybe it was the holidays that made the honesty come out. Maybe the honesty is what pushed me to feeling so alone. I've never felt so alone as I did that night. Loved by some and forgotten by others. I haven't let someone in to my heart for a long time. I envy those with someone to dally with on sunny days and disagree with on others. I wish a person would come into my life and recognize my lonliness and pull me from the dreams of having someone to wake up too. Make them a reality. Not just a random guy, but someone I can love. It hurts being so alone.

I've been braking my own heart for years.

I guess as I have grown, Christmas has become more of a burden than a reward for the end of the year. The biting anticipation that hummed through my veins weeks and weeks in advance has dulled to an anxiety over what to get my family and friends. As a child I really didn't care for the presents or the food but what I really wanted was for my mom and family to relax. Holidays always seemed to set my mom off more than usual. She always seemed more melancholy and lashed out more often. I always loved having us together in the morning and waking up my brother and sister with my childish glee. What made me most excited was that on Christmas day, our family actually looked like the one on t.v. We had smiles (although generated by a cruel consumerist economy) and laughter. It was the time of the year that I didn't really mind being the butt of the joke because it made everyone smile, including my mom. Fixing had become the objective of my life, especially in regards to my mother. Now, shes gone. Who do I fix? Myself... that I would rather not do. That can be put off until later right? No. Unfortunately, it is I who needs the most fixing and I have no idea where to start. Its hard realizing that I have no idea who I am or who I want to be. I feel like a mosaic that wasn't pieced together correctly and now all the pieces are separating from themselves to the four winds. I am so many different things. I have many different faces and opinions that collide with each other. Where do I get the strength to go from day to day, week to week, year to year, "finding myself". I have hopes for the new year in regards to myself. No promises to myself, those are too easily broken, especially in the face of pleasing others around me. No, I have hopes. That is a good sign, especially in this odd place that I am in, my own skin.

Ever I was a story teller.

Even as a small child, I wove my imagination into a story of enormous proportions and never an ending in sight. Pleasing others my only objective and seeing them smile as I loved to smile. My stories always included hope and magic. Forever an opening into my mind. I haven't told a story of those lines in years. The more Prim and Proper I became, the less my stories were forthcoming. I miss the stars that I played with in my dreams and the people I met on my adventures across the great Sahara or the Amazon. I miss the child I was. That is what most of my problem is. I tried to become everything but what I really am. My spirit is in pain along with my body. My mind a tormented mess. How I dream of the days of flirting with the clouds and playing tricks on the gods of Greece. How do I recapture the spirit that I have almost extinguished. And along the way, how do I break through my lonely hours. Self contemplation is a hard task and humor is all I have now. My serious nature only a facade for the masses. I have no idea what I have left to give the world or what I have left to take. It still does not seem fair that I am still here with no plan in sight. Nothing to look for. I've been chasing nothing. I feel like I am not meant to be here among the masses nor do I belong anywhere else. I don't have a home for my soul. I lost that along with my childhood. How do I find a home that I have no idea if it exists. I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin, among my own kin, even looking in the mirror. What can I do to make this go away? Where can I go? Everyone has someone. Everyone. I am so tired of being alone in a world where human interaction is key to survival. The one person that I know is in part my soul mate will never ever be mine. My heart seems to war with my mind in that respect. I cant move on from him with out judging every other guy that comes into my life by his standards. Im stubborn, impossible and afraid. Moving on and moving are two different things but sometimes they go hand in hand and in my case, I fear that is the problem. I've known no where else but here, my heart and my body. I need to be away. See for myself the success stories of others. I need hope back in my life and fearlessness. I want to be free.

She stumbled, no one came. Shes Come Undone.

It felt like the world was being centered on one point in my focus. One thing meant something else, my heart was racing, tears easily flowing down my painted cheeks, wind wiping my unsmiling face. I felt stuck, meaningless, an extra in my own film. I need something to pull me out of my frustration. I want this to work but it feels worse. My body is rebelling against my mind, my mind is moving north, south, east and west. I cant pull myself into one being. I should have been an actress. I can smile at the drop of a dime while my heart and mind war inside of myself. I want to have peace with myself and others. I want to let go.
I met a woman today on the parkway, the only place I feel safe and happily alone. Reality came to us both as we discussed the merits of God and his gift of free will. She asked me, after I had run to the shore and stood for about an hour, if I was running away. I told her, I have no where to go and I have no idea what I am doing. I don't know what had come over me, I never do these days. We talked about her first husband who had died and now she was married to this man who was 334 pounds and a waterman. They seemed genuinely happy as she played with her dog "puppy power". She told me that, in prayer, she got the answer of free will from God after her son had seen his best friend's father shoot himself in the head. She had told the boy that he did nothing wrong, it wasn't that the father wasn't strong enough, but that he had free will. I guess it makes sense. Then the woman told me, as an after thought, that she had been diagnosed with cancer two days ago. It was ironic enough that she told me this as she took a drag of her cigarette. Her reasoning for continuing smoking was that she was mean when she was not smoking. I'm sure I had an odd look on my face, for when she put out her cigarette, she smiled and told me that she was a cruel woman.
I always thought that when I met someone wise, it would be in the the woods in the form of an old lady with rags and maybe holding a lantern as she walked out of hole in a mythical tree. That is probably the consequence of having an overactive imagination and the overtime of reading fairy tales as a child. No, this woman, who blithely told me she was cruel yet asked me if I had anywhere to go, was wearing a pair of old weathered jeans and a knitted sweater. She was missing a couple of teeth and had the old familiar accent of Virginia despite her Arizona upbringing.
I dont know where I was going or what the hell I was doing on that beach. I dont know why I met that woman who was waiting for her son and waterman husband. I do know that she will forever be etched in my memory. Not for beauty of face, but of heart. She saw in an instant that dark thoughts were swirling in my head and that I needed human contact even in her darkest hours. We chatted for a long time, the unknown woman and I. It reminded me of my mother. I hope that right before she died, mom had imparted to a stranger the hope that this woman gave me. Odd, the one place I feel safe and alone and able to connect to my mom is the place to meet the most interesting people. I know she is looking down on this and smiling in ironic glee. Mom always had a sense of humor, even in her alchoholic mind.
Im suprised this had actually happened. Its something that I would normally expect out of a rather melodramatic movie or novel. Ironic I guess.

Yours

I want to be your morning star.
The one you hold at dawns first light.
The ear you whisper your hopes and fears.
The Smile you crave from dawn 'till dusk.
The heart beat you yearn to hear.
I want to be your evening star.
The one you hold at dusk's last whisper.
The one you love and forever to turn to.
I want to be yours for tomorrow and forever.
For you are my morning and evening star.
The one I always turn to.

I wasn't aware that I had a choice.

Its funny. Not "hardie har har" funny but ironically funny. I thought that my future was well mapped out for me, by me. I would graduate high school at 18, go to college for teaching and graduate, get a job in Virginia by the age of 22, meet my future husband at 27, move to Canada by 30 have kids at 32 and continue to work until I was about 60. I look at it now and shudder. Its not a bad plan, just not one I want. For some strange reason, I let peoples ideas about my life affect my own decisions. They really have no hand in it, or at least they shouldn't. My "people pleasing" tendencies have taken me too far over the edge and I am now just realizing that I have absolutly no idea what I want to do. I know I want to graduate with History and somehow end up in the motherland however, I have no clue as to how I am going to get there. Let life sweep me by and take chances and risks? I've been told that as a child, that is all that I would do, alwasy the first to jump or first to try something new between my childhood friends. But after a while, something changed. The effects of my moms alcholism changed my attitude and getting into trouble meant I made all those around me angry. So, therefore, dont do anything to make anyone unhappy, Audrey, because if you do they will get sick or really mad at you and no one will like you. I am just now realizing that the guilt I put onto myself is unfounded. I take everyones dissapointments and make them my own. Sponge-like, I would go day to day thinking that it was my fault my mom was sick, not the alchohol affecting her body and mind. It was my fault that my family was so distant. At times I thought that I really was adopted and there was a Russian family waiting for me in the harsh siberian plain. I dont know what happened to that child that was ready for anything. She changed and saw the world through distorted lenses. She turned into me. I exist, thats all. Its not my fault that she died. It's a hard thought to grasp: my birth didn't push her to drink. I know it was stressful and hard on everyone but it just seems strange that all of sudden she just started drinking more and more until it became "The Problem". These thoughts are what have been going on in my head for the past 8 years. My distorted brain picked up a non existant guilt and held onto it until finally I am here, writing about it. I guess its time to grow up and grow down. I need to find that little girl that decided that riding a bike first on the block was the coolest thing and I would do anything to learn first. I also need to take responsibility and let go of all my "guilt".

"One cant make an omlette without breaking some eggs."-french proverb

The apple on center stage

I never understood the intricacies of being lonely. It's a hard business and sometimes a vicious circle. Normally, those who are lonely seek out comfort in others and their company. I, however, draw into myself and push those who wish to be there far far away. It's not something to clear up by going to the bar or a dilapidated frat house to cure. Unfortunately, I am stubborn in my standards for a relationship. I don't want to "date" just to date and have someone. That means nothing to me. What the hell am I doing in a glorified high school that we call college? Its all the same and it never makes sense to me. I prefer my own company sometimes to a caveman like twit spilling his beer all over me and laughing when it makes my shirt see through. Not entertaining. Maybe I ask to much. Who knows. Its not like I am asking for the moon and stars, just someone to pass the time with and enjoy their company. Lord. I am lonely but that doesn't mean I am ready to open up to someone who may or may not break my heart. I know the feeling and it hurts.
On another note. I am terrified to take the small 10 mg. of anti depressants that currently resides in my drawer. If it is supposed to get me back to my usual self, how the hell will I know. I've been stuck for so long, I dont remember how I was before all of this. Curses.
On another another note... I love this cold weather.
Laugh alot and Learn too much.