The True and Outstanding Adventures (Part II)

This is one of my favorite covers for the book, "The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters." It is very similar to mine, except that the title is placed above the girl on my copy.

Please Note: This entry will make much more sense if you have already read the entry entitled, "The True and Outstanding Adventures." Take notice that this is titled "(Part II)".

One of the things I love about this book so much is the cover. The little girl, in her pink princess dress, with a crown on her head, skipping across a bright blue sky... waving a sword. And happy. As if princesses are supposed to wave swords. As if she is supposed to be waving a sword. It is yet another personification of the fighting spirit. It is ridiculous to fight a losing battle. It is ridiculous for a princess to wave a sword. And yet, some do it anyway, because they believe what they are fighting for.

It reminds me of the games I played when I was young, and the differences between those games and the games Emily played. I don't mean like boardgames, I mean make-believe. I only know what games Emily played because I read a paper she wrote for a class regarding the effects of childhood games and make-believe on the person that played them.

Example: Emily often played the role of "damsel in distress" when she was younger. She was the princess who had been captured or cursed or whatever, and basically waited for the prince to save her. Now, I don't know Emily well enough to figure out what kind of effect this may have had on her, if any, nor how strong the effect is. But according to Emily's paper, she has trouble making decisions and doing things for herself. She doesn't like being her own advocate. She is uncomfortable being "her own hero," so to speak.

I was rarely, if ever, the damsel in distress. I was the hero's sidekick. I was the victim who was making a great escape. I was the princess waving a sword over her head. What can I say? I was kick-butt. And I've developed a fighting spirit, I assume, because of it. So much so that I would say I don't know when to stop fighting. And when it comes to the point that fighting is futile and I think I may need to stop fighting, I don't know how. I really don't. That is when I turn into Emily. If I have to stop fighting, I can't make my own decisions or do things for myself. Because all I know how to do is struggle and fight and push and make an effort. To stop doing that is like to stop being me. But sometimes, fighting just isn't what you are supposed to do.

Like the princess with the sword, I don't always know my place. Don't you know that you, a princess, aren't supposed to hold a sword, much less run about waving it like a magic wand? Don't you realize that as a princess, you shouldn't fight, but sit demurely on the side and let things play out, hoping that they do so to your advantage? Don't I know that fighting a losing battle is going to cause more pain than good?

Maybe I do. But I just don't know how to not fight. I don't know how to not hope. I don't know how to stop futile fighting, and I don't know how to let go of false hope. So convention says I need to do both of those things, but my consciousness says that forcing myself to do so would be a defiance of my nature, painful, and bad. I don't know who is right. I don't know what to do with my fighting nature and my love of hope.

A friend from church, whom I shall call Sound, told me this. It is something that gives the princess the right to wave the sword and gives me a reason to fight and hope. :

He says that if you are naturally something, it is because you are supposed to be that thing. If you are naturally stubborn, then you are supposed to be stubborn. You weren't given your stubbornness so you could fight it down and force yourself into submission. You weren't given your intense need to stand up so that it's hard for you to sit down. You are made something to be something. The key is to know where to use it. Are you going to stubbornly fight to keep him, or are you going to stubbornly fight for the dignity that he is destroying? Are you going to stubbornly fight to get him back, or are you going to stubbornly fight to keep yourself as strong and self-reliant as you were before this happened? As strong and sure of yourself as you naturally are? As you are most likely meant to be?

<3 o.

p.s. : Sound's words were much shorter and to the point. Parts of what I included were the things that went unspoken, but that I felt were very much what he was trying to get me to realize.

The True and Outstanding Adventures

"The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters" is a grand and magnificent book. It follows the story of Olivia Hunt as she tries desperately to keep together her unravelling life, and her sister, Madeline Hunt, who is fighting vainly and ferociously against the leukemia and treatments that are wearing her closer to death. Olivia Hunt is somewhat of a pessimist, but she is also a fighter. Maddie, as Madeline is called, is an optimist, and a very idealistic one at that. This drives Olivia insane. Olivia is willing to fight where she thinks it might work, or where Maddie shames her into action, but she does not believe in helping everyone that she can or fighting needlessly or anything romantic like that.

Olivia is also working, throughout this book, on a movie adaptation of Don Quixote. Now, I have never read Don Quixote, but here is what I gather from what I've read about it: Don Quixote is basically crazy and reads nothing but books about chivalry and knighthood. He decides to become a knight, and he picks this random farmer, Sancho Panza, to be his squire. So they ride around, and Sancho takes care of Quixote while he is doing crazy things, like attacking windmills and freeing criminals -- all for the sake of love and good. At the end of the book, Quixote is dying, and he renounces all of his actions and beliefs -- about heroism, chivalry, and whatnot. He says that he knew everything he was doing was nonsense and that he had done it anyway for the sake of those good things, but now he was renouncing it. Sancho can't stand to hear Quixote say this, because, even though the things Quixote did were crazy, and somewhat pointless, Sancho has become infected with the ideals of heroism, bravery, and doing good. So even after Quixote has died, and renounced his own knighthood, those beliefs live on in Sancho Panza.

And that is kind of what happens with Olivia and Maddie. After Maddie dies, Olivia finds a note from her that says Maddie knew all along that she couldn't beat the cancer, and that she knew it was a helpless cause. She said she fought anyway, for the sake of fighting, and for being brave, and for others. Olivia, despite being a pessimist, starts to realize the point of fighting a losing battle -- not for the victory, but for the qualities you stand for in your fight.

I have a point. I'm getting there.

I live in reality. I'm a pessimist by nature. Bad things happen -- bad things are about the only thing that happen. I am convinced. But, I was raised on fairy tales, and I love them. I am an optimistic pessimist. I believe that everything is, by nature, evil. But I have this weak, pulsing, thing inside me that hopes that some things might defy their evil nature and make good.

It's a false hope. As with this situation with Han, the hope doesn't belong there. No matter if he says he loves me, no matter if I love him, no matter how hard I fight for hope of fixing this -- it won't happen. It's futile to fight, in this case.

And yet, and yet... there's that hope. That naturally shiny thing that the fairy tales have carved into me, and that little silver life line that Han has thrown to me by saying that he would like to come back to me and that he still loves me. The pessimist in me knows that that is probably not true. But that isn't enough to severe that life line. Because I hope what he said is true.

So is it time for Don Quixote to lay down his spear and set aside his armor and renounce his battles for love and goodness and the victory of all that is right? Or does he continue battling to keep the hope of those things alive?

<3 o.

Whine A Little, You'll Feel Better

Or at least, I will.

After this, I'm going to try not to complain so much. Only talk about things that I think about. Or think about things to get other thoughts off my mind... or something.

I don't want to go into the details of what's been happening. It's a messy, dramatic, confusing, painful business, and I don't want to think about it.

My body keeps shaking. I'm a little cold, but I can't imagine that my whole body should shake from being "a little cold" when I am sitting directly under the hot air vent. My stomach hurts a lot; almost as if there is a lot of pressure on or in it, although there isn't. I have no appetite, which is bad, because I am currently 95 pounds, and I need one. An appetite, I mean. My forehead feels sore and bruised from thrashing it against the bathroom wall during lunch.

I just realized that the ring of Han's that I'm holding on to is on my left ring finger. I thought I had it on my right. I made the deliberate decision to keep it on my right because of our recent complications. I have no recollection of its transition to the other hand.

I keep thinking or doing things and then in the midst of them wonder why I would do that. If I see much of my flesh exposed, I imagine it being sliced open. My skin is just so unmarred, it seems only natural when I think of it that there should be a cut of some kind. When I realize that I'm thinking about that, I am horrified. Today, I made a list of ways to die and all the pros and cons of these methods. I was reading it over, and I realized that it was a horrible and morbid thing to do, and I didn't even know why I had done it. Sometimes ideas just pop into my head. When I am alone on a staircase, I have the urge/idea: "Throw yourself down that." If I am driving on a country road and there are telephone poles, I get the thought: "Hit one." Immediatley after these things pop into my mind, I respond with, "What? That's a stupid idea, why would I do, or even think that? That's weird." I ignore it and go on. But that's getting increasingly harder.

I don't just yell at and cry at my reflections anymore. Now we argue. They tell me what to do. I tell them to shut up. They tell me not to be stupid and to listen to them because they know what they are talking about. I tell them to leave me alone. Someone usually tells the other that they're ugly. She is though. I often find myself that I'm glad I don't look like any of them. And then I remember that I do. And that's pretty upsetting, because they don't look very happy.

<3 o.

You Know There's Something Wrong When...

1. You miss school Thursday and Friday, have a Snow Day on Monday, and return to school Tuesday to discover that the outline for a research paper (for which the topic you have yet to choose) is due on Wednesday. You have a powerpoint presentation to finish over Vienna, Austria that you also need to have done by Wednesday. First hour Wednesday, you have an Econ test and you didn't bring your Econ book home to study.

2. You cry a lot for stupid reasons. Reasons like you have a big nose or that you'll probably never be able to write a book. And what sort of reason is that? If you want to write a book, then write a book. You can hardly cry because you'll never be able to write a book unless you're terminally ill or completely incapable of writing. Otherwise, what are you crying for? Nonetheless, you cry about it. Not because you want to, or you choose to. But thinking about these things makes you cry, and you just can't stop thinking about them. You really don't have a choice.

3. You cry a lot for no reason. You're just sitting there reading or working on a paper and all of a sudden you become conscious of the fact that you are crying. Upon further investigation, you can find no trigger for this phenomenon. No pain, no irritant (emotional or otherwise), no reason at all. And yet, you are completely incapable of stopping yourself - and then the fact that you can't stop yourself from crying for no reason at all seems to you a very good reason to be very upset, and that only makes you cry more.

4. You yell at your reflection in one mirror, and cry to the one in the other. As if they were people. As if they were different people, with different personalities. As if one reflection were to blame for whatever is upsetting you, and as if the other reflection is able to make you feel better. And then you apologize to them - for being insensitive and a burden. As if they care!

5. You don't enjoy anything. Your favorite past-times go unfinished if and when you call forth the energy to start them - which isn't very often, because it takes nearly all of your energy just to drag yourself out of bed in the morning. This is even worse if you have a reputation of being an energetic person. Five hours of sleep? Eight hours? Fourteen? Regardless, you wake with the same feeling: Complete and utter, unshakeable exhaustion. Apathy. Carelessness. The feelings drag on through things you are usually so dedicated to; art, sports, school, friends, church, music, whatever. All of a sudden, none of those things seem to matter very much. Or, if they do, you simply don't have the will to deal with them, because they aren't really enjoyable, they are a burden now.

6. Your way of coping with these difficulties is mostly thinking of self-mutilation. Attempts to find a way to hurt yourself without any physical damage, outside sign of self-inflicted pain, or hurt to your friends. You don't want to do any real, physical damage. You don't want to end up in a hospital, because you don't want this to be public. You don't want your friends to know, because you don't want them to have any feelings of confusion or guilt. Self-inflicted emotional abuse? Does that exist? You could take your migraine painkiller every day -- that might fix the problem all together. The doctor gave you a pretty high dosage; the medicine makes you pretty loopy. But, no, that's illegal.

7. No one believes you. According to everyone you take the time or energy to confess this to, you are a drama queen, you are over-reacting, you are crazy -- but you're fine, and nothing is wrong with you! You just need to cheer up and get over it -- and if you don't, then these people (whom, you decided after much internal mental conflict, you trusted) are going to have to leave or stop talking or walk away if you don't -- because they can't handle it. Because your emotional fits are too much for them to handle. Yes, your tears, your fits, your stress, and your all-around madness is too much for these outsiders to handle, but you -- the person coping with having all of it running around inside your skull -- are expected to "cheer up" and "get over it." As if you have a choice. As if you choose to cry compulsively. As if that's something you take pride in. As if screaming at your mirror is enjoyable. As if it's comforting that the only that comforts you is the idea of hurting yourself. Yeah. I bet you totally love it. I bet that you choose that, and I bet you wouldn't change it if you could.

<3 o.

p.s. : My mother doesn't know much, if any of this, but I've told her that I need "help," and we are in the process of finding me a psychologist.

A Room Without Books Is Like A Body Without A Soul

-Marcus Tullius Cicero

Have I ever been more content, especially in the last several weeks, than I have been while roaming the shelves of our school's library? Probably not. I can think of very few things that bring me more joy than to select a book not-quite-at-random (I do have my own ill-defined standards) and to read some lines, paragraphs, or pages. I also like to take a look at its history; how often has it been checked out, when, and by whom? I am always sad when I find a book that has never been checked out. How sad! Sometimes, if I find a check-out card that is fairly full (of stamps, varied handwriting with different colored ink, and lots of names), or has a familiar name (such as that of a teacher's), or hasn't been checked out in a while (but was quite popular in 1978), I will steal the card. I suppose that, to these books, I am something like the Grim Reaper. What are these cards to these books? Their memories, their souls, their pasts? Are they grieved to be parted with the cards? Are they looking forward to a new card? Or are they just books who could really care less about the piece of cardstock in the pocket glued in their cover?

Whatever.

You know I love books, and I would never intentionally hurt their feelings. Books are the only reliable escape for me and so many others. Movies are good, yes, but they are over so quickly, and there are some things that you can capture in a book that you just can't get in a movie. It is difficult to explain - but if you have ever read such books as Wuthering Heights or The Thirteenth Tale or any book that delves deeper than just what happens, then you can understand. With a movie, it is hard to capture any more than just what happens. In a book, there are no such limits. Your mind isn't limited to just what happens. If you are lucky enough to have found a good book, you are consumed by what happens, why it happens, who these people are, why they are who they are, their interactions, their feelings, thoughts, questions, uncertainties... You can become completely lost in just one character of a good book, nevermind the all-involving story!

I love the characters. Every time I open a book, I can't wait to meet the characters. I am always looking for one to connect with, and once I do, I emulate them. I think I can honestly say that my personality is a mesh of the characters I have met, adored, and mimicked throughout my life. My stubbornness and fits of passion? Catherine Earnshaw/Linton. My ability to be manipulated and attraction to mystery? Christine Daae. My desire to shock and surprise and be strong? Felicity (Gemma Doyle Trilogy). My belief that you should always help if you can? Samantha (American Girls). May I point at that there are some contradictions in some of those qualities? That would account for my confusion. I am constantly trying to decide: Is it more desirable to be like this character or like this character? In each book, each character is presented as the most desirable... none of them are presented objectively. So trying to emulate all of them is a very confusing and self-contradicting process. Not even just self-contradicting, but other-character-contradicting.

Being wild and without inhibitions is intimidating, but intriguing. Being gentle and generous is defenseless, but offers an opportunity to be defended. Pessimism is unromantic in its negativity but romantic in its possibility to be denied and defeated. Optimism is unromantic in its lack of need, but romantic in its endless joy. I have spent my entire life reading, absorbing traits from all over the specturm, and observing their advantages. I want to be both ends of all spectrums - I can't be - but in any situation, I am instinctively moved to be both. This is confusing in oh-so-many ways. Not only am I confused now by what I want to be, by my lack of knowing which is better to be, but I am also confused by the fact that I don't know what I really am. Without the influence of any books or characters, where on these spectrums would I fall all on my own? I think it's too late to ever know for sure.

I have quoted Muriel Rukeyser before, in August, as having said, "The world is up of stories, not atoms." I want to remind you of the truth of that. I, for one, am certainly made up more of stories than atoms! I surely am not the only one. But, if I have to be made of anything other than atoms, stories are surely the best thing.

I have to admit that writing this post while sitting anywhere other than a library feels a tad bit like blasphemy; however, I have yet to encounter a library that will allow me to access my blog, and so I will simply have to cope.

<3>

For Me? : Acknowledging Problems

My dear friend Elsa has recently discovered a blog, which we have both added to our sidebar jiggers, called "I Wrote This For You." It is a collection of photographs taken mostly of common things with uncommon lighting or perspective, and each photograph is given a statement. Sometimes the statement is clearly connected to the content of the photograph, sometimes it is not. Here is one statement from the blog.

"Sometimes it feels like every song on the radio was written just for you.
Sometimes, they are."

I don't listen to the radio, but I do listen to my iPod on shuffle a lot - and it is nearly the same thing, because there is a lot of music on there that I get from friends and relatives that I am not familiar with.

Music is a strange thing. Sometimes, you can go years listening to a song, thinking nothing of it. And whether you physically skip it or not, your brain skips over it as soon as you recognize the first few notes, because your brain knows what is going to follow, and that there is no point to it, and it sees no point in listening to it. But then later, for some reason, your brain doesn't skip the song, and you listen to it - and it seems that the words must have changed, because all at once, not only is it a song that you can relate to, it's a song that you need.

These songs are magical things.

I have encountered one such song recently. I do not know its name or who sings it. It is known to me only as "Track 03" in the mix "Good Music for EmilyBean." The words that I either didn't notice or didn't understand before are the following:

"Is this the good, the beautiful and true?
Can't see the battle when it's right in front of you
In the mirror, I know a weary heart when I see one"

Obviously, that isn't the entire song, but that's the beginning, the part that probably got my attention, and the part that, according to "I Wrote This For You," was probably written for me.

I have an obsession with being "strong." Not physically, but emotionally/mentally. I don't know how many people are aware of that. However, when I have a problem or problems, I often deny their existence, or their severity, or the need for help in dealing with them - not just to others, but to myself as well. I don't like relying or being dependent on others - that requires making one's self vulnerable, which I consider dangerous. Because of this, I try to deny that I need other people. I try not to let many people know too much about me or how I feel about certain things.

So, because problems, severity of problems, and the solving of problems go ignored in my life... they've gotten bigger. Because I've been denying their existence, I "can't see the battle when it's right in front of me." I don't allow people to help me with my problems as often as I should - I don't even allow people as near to maybe might be best - I'm tired of dealing with everything mostly on my own. But I'm so in denial, I don't "know a weary heart when I see one."

I'm obsessed with weakness and not being weak. I hate to cry, especially when there is a chance I might be seen. It is almost imposssible for me to cry during the day, when there is light and I am more visible. If someone has actually seen me cry, it was probably a big deal - Either I was very, very upset, or I trust them very, very much.

I am not really sure why I hate the idea of weakness so much. Certainly, I don't want to risk being hurt. I don't want to be vulnerable because I don't want to be injured. I don't want to be close because I don't want to be abandoned. But I also wonder if my small size has something to do with it? Do I feel weaker - more at risk and more vulnerable - partially because of my size? Am I trying to prove something, maybe? That I can still be strong emotionally and mentally even if I can't be strong physically?

Or am I just trying to blame a problem I have on something that I can't control, when the problem is something that I can fix and should be fixing? Like I do with many of my problems, as a way to deny their existence, their severity, and their need for a solution?

<3 o.

p.s. : I found the song. It's called 'Perfectly' by Judd and Maggie, I believe.