Parting Gift

I'm getting sick.

I can feel it in my throat and my head. People say doctors make the worst patients, and i am not an exception to this rule. It starts with the insane migrane, i start to feel lightheaded and tired. I get cold all of a sudden, and start layering myself with millions of sweaters, and then everything i eat taste like a bland mixture of grossness. That's actually what happened last night. After doing some late night studying i had to close my eyes my head was hurting so bad. I think go chilly for no reason, and put on 3 sweaters, a couple of sweat pants, and curled under a blanket for the remainder of the night. I am a big baby when it comes to getting sick. My mom thinks it's funny, because one) she knows how much i hate being sick and 2) she knows that i most be the only girl in history where cold medicine does not affect them.

When i was younger, my mom would by the medicine that puts you to sleep. It worked like a charm for my brother, who would fall to sleep instantly. Like a fighter i refused to go down. Blanket in tow i would drag myself down the stairs, coughing and sneezing, find my place on the couch and attempt to be productive by reading, writing, or anything else. I usually just end up hours later asleep against something. Fall break is coming up, and it sucks that i may be home for four days, being sick. DAMN GERMS. I try to elude you for the past two months but you snuck up and got me, DAMN DAMN DAMN.

Another test, another nervous breakdown. Though it was still one of those " I don't think i failed" reactions as i walked out of the lecture room, i know that until i get the test back, i will think that i did horrible, though in my heartest of hearts i know that i did pretty well. Mike actually showed up for this test, and though he said he did pretty well, i don't really trust his word enough to 1) care 2) believe him. I've been talking to this boy named Ryan for the past couple of weeks. We have Bio lab together, along with mike, and somohow we have formed this weird kind of humor togther. Mike really doesn't like that i hang around with him. You can tell because when me and Ryan talk, he walks away and rolls his eyes. Today as i was walking back to my dorm, and Mike stated that he thinks Ryan is weird, and thinks that Ryan is a little touchy touchy, b/c last week he touched my shoulder. I don't think he's weird, i think he's funny, and though i do pretty much meet crazy people in my daily life, i value that he can laugh about stupid stuff, instead of being obsessed with the minute aspects of being.

I don't have the greatest track record with having amazing friends. Um...most of the people i hang out with seemed to be damaged from the experiences life has thrown them. I don't know if i just appear to be a person who will accept them as they are, but they gravitate towards me, as if i can somehow help them find the answers to their problems, if they only knew i didn't have a clue about anything and was just as lost as them. I get two extremes when it comes to friends, those who want to be taken care of, as in Sabrina who was molested when she was younger and as a support system i was her sort of diary for all that has happened to her, or who want to take care of me, as in Matthew who appointed himself my bodyguard and treated me as if i was a fragile being. With all the relationships with people i have made in the last couple of years, i took it as a reflection of who i was. Maybe i was this strong person people could rely on to get them through the tough times. Or maybe i was this fragile, breakable being who was always two steps away from falling apart, and people had this need to make sure that didn't happen. So in a way i never really knew if i was an anchor or something that needed to be taken care of.

I guess thats probably why i am in this complete stuggle with myself...there is a quote that fits me to a tee.

"what she dreaded was to be possessed and still excluded"

I can't say at this point in my life, i know exactly what i want. From myself, from others...i do know that right now i am just looking to be happy. I know happiness seems like it is so easy to obtain, but not really. I have this want to be a smiling, happy, one of those girls who just exudes stability, but then i have this notion that i'm not those girls. I don't even want to be them most of the time. I am a living oxymoron, and right now i don't have problem with it, unless it drives me to the brink of insanity. But i feel as if i'm getting to the brink of something, whether it is just being okay with who i am, or growing into this stronger and somehow more stabile person along the way, but now borderline is what i face, not really knowing what path i want to take, who i want to be.

I remember reading the bell jar a couple of years back, and feeling the same kind of anxiety that Esther felt because she had all these opportunities and paths she could take, but taking one meant that she had to abandoned ths rest. (well now parting gift seems like a perfect title though it was just a reference to Fiona Apple's new song i'm in love with). I guess that could be apart of it also...

"...I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. "

My options seem endless, and they drive me crazy because i want them all. And the more i more i just wait, and ponder what choices i want to make they seem to go further and further out of reach. I always felt that i needed to define myself, that at 19, i would be completely sure of who i was. And yet i know that you don't ever really become sure of who you are, just comfortable with it.