Rules to Live By

Things are as things are I suppose.  Though that does not stop them or prevent them from being ultimately frustrating.  So frustrating in fact, that I is hard for me to thoroughly and accurately display my distaste for the current situation in text, and so I will not do so.  rather, I will simply talk about other more important, less frustrating matters.  Such as the changes that I will be making in the nearby future.  I have recently deleted my deviantArt account and my facebook accounts.  I will probably be moving to do the same with my gaiaonline in the near future, as well as a few other social networking sites. It is about time that I focus my life more on my work, and more on the future than what I've been doing so far.  This point has been made explicitly and frighteningly obvious by the intensity of my college summer courses.

What this really means is, at 20 years old, I'm done playing game, with myself and others.  From now on, life and the future takes precedence.  The internet will become a tool for my recourses such as researching, and keeping in contact with my friends through IM.  Also, as over the last few days, I've been receiving quite an impressive display on how much my friendship matters to some, I will be weeding out my friends lists on my IMs and breaking contacts I should have broken long ago. 

I've learned a lesson over tis last year, one that bit me hard, and I'm sure you all know how the saying goes, once bitten, twice shy?  Yeah, those are quite the eloquent and wise words.  I am starting over my life, with my friends, my family, and myself.  A form of rebirth, renewal. With this rebirth, a new code of conduct.  Rules for myself.  A new code, and it will be updated regularly. 

For now, I will start with rule one. 

1. I will never, from this day forward, unless it's a matter of life, or a matter of moral obligation give money, be it to friend, family, or acquaintance if it is not a gift or a matter of charity. I will never ask a friend, family, or acquaintance for money, nor accept unless it is a matter of charity of gift.  There will be no exceptions, there will be no charge of interest, because it will not happen.  All debts will be paid as appropriately required. 
• This rule has come into place due to the result of my and other's generosities being taken advantage of far too many times.  

This list will be updated with full explanations as time progresses.  It is my personal goal that each and every day, I will update this journal with a new rule that I will adhere by.  Bettering myself, and my relations. 

I sit, I stare, and I wonder.  I try to avoid the piteous grasp of self-pity but find myself succumbing to the reach of such a simple comfort as my own dismantled and decrepit thoughts, and for the first time in my  life I wonder... Why?  I always find myself lost it passionate fits of rage, be they outwardly directed, or inwardly, and yet I never cared to question as for a reason.  It's like a treasure map, I'm at point A, the treasure is at point Z, but and the other 24 points are hidden from me.  How do I get form point B - Y?  It seems like such an easy answer, "Follow the map."  But what happens when the map can erase itself, redraw itself, and change coordinates at will?  It becomes a labyrinth, held by the strings of a puppet master, while I stand, hearing the malevolent laughter of the puppeteer, and yet they are hidden from  me in a veil of shadow and confusion.

I find myself wanting to cry as the jest of the puppet master leads me onward, but I'm without tears to shed.  I speak as a self-righteous individual, but know it's nothing more than a mask as I stare ahead, wondering where the answers are.  I try to focus on the reality of others and not myself, and I find myself living in a lie.  I am a hypocrite to the very words I preach.  I will hold and bottle, and never release until I feel like I'm going to explode, and yet when it gets to the point that I need to find Coordinate Z I'm trapped at A trying to figure out where to go.  Do I go south? Do I go North? East? West?  Its a jigsaw puzzle and I'm one piece of 10,000 and the puzzlemaker hasn't put it all together yet.

And today, at point A, I was more lost than usual.  This time I was trapped on and Island all alone, and had to cross oceans.  I realized that on that island, there was no one, and I was trapped.  I was trapped between Point A and Point Z and had no boat, and it was too far to swim.  At this realization, and the laughter of the puppeteer once more, I was trapped.  In a rage that I couldn't express.  The questions that I found myself asking unlike any I'd ever asked  myself before:

"Two words, how hard is it to say two words?"

"Who are your real friends?  Who are images of who you want your friends to be?"

"What do you plan to do with your life?  Where do you want to go?"

"Is it so hard to say one compliment...?"

Question after question as I felt myself walking out into the ocean, but sinking with each step.   In those moments, self-pity engulfed me and I found myself suffocating.  Shock, fear, despair all consuming me so quickly that I felt myself wanting to scream.  I sat, realizing that in this world, I feel completely alone.  That of all the people I could confide in, there would be maybe two who would understand or even want to understand.  I sat in the deep despair that I couldn't even turn to my sister and trust her to understand the depression that I feel each and every time I hear the words, "Beth, you broke another promise." or "Beth, you did that again."  On and on, and I crave to hear the words, "Thank you." or, "Awesome Job, Beth."  A compliment, a smile saying she's proud.  Something...?  Anything...?  I never hear that kind of thing.

Then, my dog was rushed to the vet because she went into seizures. She tensed up, went rigid, was shaking and having a hard time breathing. She couldn't move, her eyes were wide, and she was crying she was so terrified.  I have yet to sit and actually cry, because I can't find the tears, even though I know they need to come.  I now owe my sister 200 dollars, I can't pay off my credit card bill that's looming over me because of last semester's emergency and I feel trapped.  

As I continue to sink further, I listen around me, I hear the voices of everyone who needs to vent, of everyone who I try to help. and give advise to, and I hear my own voice, talking about menial, small things, just so I can feel like I've had a moment to whine too.   But in the end, the stress becomes a competition, and I feel trapped more, as I drown.  I wonder why the stress we all feel has to become a competition, a battle for who has it worse, and who has it harder?  I want to know why there can't be comradery between the anxiety we as humans all feel.  Why one cannot listen and vent, or one cannot vent and also listen.  It's frustrating, and it's hard, as the emotions of those who can only listen and advise well up and threaten to break through.  And no matter how many hints I leave that I want to talk, that I need to confide, no one will listen. And I sink further. 

My dog was rushed to the vet, and I had to hear about how "child support didn't come in" or how, even though the cupboards are stocked, there was worry about food.  I had to hear about the wrongs in everyone else's lives, even though I was desperately trying to confide in someone, and even when they were done, and I waited, and I advised, and then I tried to say my piece, they had other things to do... And I couldn't handle it anymore. I fled, I fled from the computer, I fled from the living room where the only response to anything I could get was "Beth, you were looking for an excuse all day," or "I'm sorry."  And I ran. I did anything I could to distract myself, and yet it only made it worse.

I started thinking about my friends, and started wondering who my friends are... I started thinking about how there is feigned excitement when I walk in a room, a hug from one person, a wave, and then... no one sans one person remembers I'm there...  I remember the constant lectures of how much time I spend online, how I never do anything but sit in front of a computer all day.  How I'm lazy, how I put my computer before my pets or friends, how I'm addicted... This and that, slander after insult, and I can't say anything.  I cant say that I spend so much time on my computer because the friends that actually listen to me are two thousand miles away and can only be contacted through the World Wide Web.  I can't explain that I escape to my computer because no one invites me to do anything, and that I have nothing else to do, no one to go anywhere with.  I can't tell them that even when I go to see them, I get on my computer because I'm lonely as I sit there, trying to initiate a conversation but only get two words back, and then everyone goes silent.  I can't say any of those things.  I can't tell them that I'm lonely, and I'm desperate to spend time with them, but they never seem to remember I exist unless I'm there.  I can't tell them that the only time they wanted to come to my house was when my roommate was home.  And I can't tell them how much that hurts. 

I recently found a romantic interest, and I know he's busy, but I wanted to see if he would text me on his own.  Days have passed, not a "Hi," not a "how are you," or "what are the new adventures in the land of Liz."  Nothing.  And I feel lost there too. I feel that we are attempting something but it may be nothing more than superficial. I have initiated all contact since the first phone call. I've called, I've texted, and it's been nearly a week since we met, two weeks since the phone call.  Two days have passed since I last texted and I've not heard a word.  No returned emails... nothing.

So I sit even now, staring at my screen feeling lost, and not knowing what to do.   Because for the first time in my life, I'm asking the questions that make me realize I'm lost, and I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go, I don't know how to say the things I need to say.  None of it. I'm drowning, and I don't think I'm ever going to make it from Point A, let alone get to Point Z. 

NOM Doesn't Speak for Me!

Image from: http://www.sodahead.com/living/should-gay-marriage-be-legalized/question-991451/?link=ibaf&imgurl=http://radicalrags.com/images/t-shirts/pro_gay_marriage_rights_design.gif&q=homosexual%2Brights

NOM (National Organization for Marriage) DOESN'T Speak For Me!

I come from a small town, where the idea of Homosexual is still condemnable as the idea of being Black.  Every day, I'd hear banter, degradation, and cruelty towards the very few open homosexuals and bisexuals in our community, and I would be to the point of tears almost every day I went home, feeling helpless in my lack of power over the situation.  As an adult, I listen to this banter, and find, that my hometown, is just one of many, one of hundreds of towns in America that condemn and hate based on who a person loves.  What is the most striking to me is, our Unalienable Rights: Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness.  Yet homosexuals everywhere are having their lives ruined (and for may taken away out of desperation to escape the harassment), their Liberty denied, and aren't even permitted to pursue happiness.  This goes far beyond a Civil Rights movement, because in past Civil Rights Movements, those fighting, weren't even considered CITIZENS of our country.  These people being condemned, they are citizens, and they are seeing first hand how free the Land of the Free is.

I as a citizen, am appalled, horrified, sad, and at times speechless at the hate that our country is so explicitly showing. As a person, I claim neither "striaght" or "Gay", "Bisexual" or "Transgender."  As a person, I believe in love, I believe that love and the attraction that comes with love will dictate who I am with, be that a man or a woman.  And so when I watch, listen, hear, the idea of love being so savagely brutalized, I am filled with immense grief.  All people who think like I do, or who are Homosexual, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgendered, or Gender Queer are being denied their rights, those unalienable rights as people, as citizens of America to be free, to have happiness, to have liberty and justice. 

It is despicable to me that the country is willingly weighing the value of love.  An idea that is as old as mankind itself.  To decide that two men or two women are not able to love each other as any heterosexual man and woman would.  Its deplorable, and, there is no basis, none.  We are people, all of us.  Our blood is red, our hearts beat, we all cry, and feel despair, we all feel loss, we all feel sorrow, and we should all be allowed to feel happiness.  To feel acceptance, to feel like we live in a country that stands for what we stand for.  America is supposed to be "The Land of the Free" where citizens can love, where citizens can prosper, where citizens can bask in the revelry of what it is to be American.  Yet for many of us, that is an unattainable dream, an unattainable quest, until everyone learns, that love doesn't follow all the rules, it doesn't stay within the guidelines of Man and Woman. Another man can love a man, another woman can love a woman, a man physically who is a woman can love another man or woman, or a woman physically who is a man can love another man or woman.  Love should not be subjective.

As we have proven in the past, there comes a time where we have to look passed the hatred.  Like we did with Black Rights and Woman Rights and Immigration Rights, now it's time to move forward with Homosexual Rights. Where Love is not amounted to a single, biased propaganda, where love is recognized for what love is. This is why NOM doesn't speak for me.  NOM doesn't understand the quintessential meaning of marriage, doesn't understand what it is that is actually love.  If they did, they would be NOME - National Organization for Marriage Equality. 

This is a petition I wrote against NOM, and I wanted to share it all with you.