I haven't been able to sleep lately. I'm not sure why. I've always been what I like to somewhat fondly call a periodic insomniac, and there are occasional, typically well-spaced nights that I toss and turn for hours and find myself exhausted and sore when dawn breaks. This has happened four times in the past week. I'm not exactly sure why. The day is grey and wet and humid . . . I feel like I'm underwater, with all this pressure pushing in and out and the pressure, pressure, pressure is holding me together, like if this ever-so-delicate balance is erupted, if just one more pascal is added either inside or out, I'm libel to just burst. Checks and balances. Stress holding in stress.
Blood in the water.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
I'm nineteen. I grew up in your typical white Protestant home, with two parents and four kids (I'm the oldest). We didn't have a perfectly painted picket fence, but we had the dog and the cat and the three car garage and the weekend soccer games and the seasonal choir concerts and everything else that comes so neatly packaged in the American dream. I went to a private Christian high school, I led lots of activities, and I graduated at the top of my (wonderful) class. I turned down Stanford for a full scholarship to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where I wasn't necessarily happy but found myself gearing up to pursue a degree in journalism. I got a job running a website for the journalism department, a boy from back home became the first to break my heart, my best friend left for the other side of the world, and life went on.
But things are losing their definition. Borders are continuously shifting; it's like Poland some days. Up is down and down is up, but more to the point, there is no down or up, there is no center of gravity. Entropy, and beauty in the breakdown, I suppose.
My parents are in the middle of a messy-and-always-getting-messier divorce that stemmed from sins carried out by both parties, changing my relationship with each irrevocably, and forever disillusioning me from the idolatry we often commit over the people that raise us. We're moving out of the house we have been in for six years, the longest we have lived anywhere, and I will from now on be a stranger in my parents' homes (plural - that's weird) who just visits on holidays, without a room or memories in other rooms to call my own. Worse than these purely nostalgic consequences, however, is the knock-down-drag-out fight they seem to be having to see who can pull the other through the mud more in front of me. Under the guise of "you are an adult, Kayla, you need to know," they selfishly and thoughtlessly pull me deeper and deeper into the vortex of their skewed realities. Add this to the responsibility I feel being the only source of stability in my brother and sisters' lives, and maybe it's understandable that I have sought to be own my own a lot this summer, without a whole lot of family time.
And in this alone time, I fell in love again. I'm not shy with using the words "fell in love," by the way. I do not believe in being afraid of falling in love. I don't believe in being afraid of a lot of things, but especially not love. I don't say it if it is not there, but if it is there, I say it, and I feel like it really is that clear. . . I apologize if some feel like I am oversimplifying, but we sacrifice too much in this world to political correctness as it is, and I refuse to let love be a casualty. I digress. Summer love has been a kind of pattern for me. . . I don't know why, and I don't care. But I am afraid, because sometimes when we try to carry delicate summer love into fall, it crumbles like the leaves. I never asked for any level of commitment from him, but all of the sudden he started turning down far more lurid job opportunities to stay close to me and I began driving seven hours back to Pennsylvania from school every three weeks just to see him. I am well aware that I'm leading myself further down the road of no return, and I do it willingly. He's a waiter who doesn't speak my first language; his highest aspiration is supporting his family. I want to get my fingers dirty with sand in Morocco, drink coffee in Buenos Aires, walk up towers in Prague. I understand that the pieces in this puzzle don't exactly slide together. I fell in love with him anyway and I'm drifting, drifting, drifting . . . Letting myself fall deeper and deeper because I feel safe and adored and he is wonderful and he gives me butterflies. What does this mean? I have no idea.
That fairly sums up the premise upon which I'm basing my life right now: I have no idea. I'm writing, teaching, working for the journalism department, majoring in English and Spanish, carrying out my first real serious relationship with a boy about as far away from my life experience as humanly possible, watching my family crumble, and wondering what the hell is going to happen next. I'm not unhappy. I live by the day. Whether or not this approach to life is self-sustaining, we shall see.
So there are few rough basics about me. The finer details, of course, are still emerging.
But things are losing their definition. Borders are continuously shifting; it's like Poland some days. Up is down and down is up, but more to the point, there is no down or up, there is no center of gravity. Entropy, and beauty in the breakdown, I suppose.
My parents are in the middle of a messy-and-always-getting-messier divorce that stemmed from sins carried out by both parties, changing my relationship with each irrevocably, and forever disillusioning me from the idolatry we often commit over the people that raise us. We're moving out of the house we have been in for six years, the longest we have lived anywhere, and I will from now on be a stranger in my parents' homes (plural - that's weird) who just visits on holidays, without a room or memories in other rooms to call my own. Worse than these purely nostalgic consequences, however, is the knock-down-drag-out fight they seem to be having to see who can pull the other through the mud more in front of me. Under the guise of "you are an adult, Kayla, you need to know," they selfishly and thoughtlessly pull me deeper and deeper into the vortex of their skewed realities. Add this to the responsibility I feel being the only source of stability in my brother and sisters' lives, and maybe it's understandable that I have sought to be own my own a lot this summer, without a whole lot of family time.
And in this alone time, I fell in love again. I'm not shy with using the words "fell in love," by the way. I do not believe in being afraid of falling in love. I don't believe in being afraid of a lot of things, but especially not love. I don't say it if it is not there, but if it is there, I say it, and I feel like it really is that clear. . . I apologize if some feel like I am oversimplifying, but we sacrifice too much in this world to political correctness as it is, and I refuse to let love be a casualty. I digress. Summer love has been a kind of pattern for me. . . I don't know why, and I don't care. But I am afraid, because sometimes when we try to carry delicate summer love into fall, it crumbles like the leaves. I never asked for any level of commitment from him, but all of the sudden he started turning down far more lurid job opportunities to stay close to me and I began driving seven hours back to Pennsylvania from school every three weeks just to see him. I am well aware that I'm leading myself further down the road of no return, and I do it willingly. He's a waiter who doesn't speak my first language; his highest aspiration is supporting his family. I want to get my fingers dirty with sand in Morocco, drink coffee in Buenos Aires, walk up towers in Prague. I understand that the pieces in this puzzle don't exactly slide together. I fell in love with him anyway and I'm drifting, drifting, drifting . . . Letting myself fall deeper and deeper because I feel safe and adored and he is wonderful and he gives me butterflies. What does this mean? I have no idea.
That fairly sums up the premise upon which I'm basing my life right now: I have no idea. I'm writing, teaching, working for the journalism department, majoring in English and Spanish, carrying out my first real serious relationship with a boy about as far away from my life experience as humanly possible, watching my family crumble, and wondering what the hell is going to happen next. I'm not unhappy. I live by the day. Whether or not this approach to life is self-sustaining, we shall see.
So there are few rough basics about me. The finer details, of course, are still emerging.
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