Status Quo?

Again, a long time since I wrote in my blog. No real excuses. I either feel I have more important things to do, or I'm too tired. I took this picture of bleeding hearts. I want to include my pictures in my blog.

I've noticed that I constantly check nearly everyone I come into contact with if they're wearing a wedding ring. Being married still holds status in society, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. I try not to. I'm single and I like being single. People may take pity on me that I'm in denial. People also think that I must be looking, because everyone wants to be in a monogamous committed relationship, right? Back to the topic at hand (pun intended), why do I always look for the wedding ring? Is it because in this society of the nuclear family, I'm trained to do so? If someone is not wearing a wedding ring, then I question why they're single. Is it by choice? Are they divorced? Are they in a committed relationship that hasn't reached marriage yet, or they choose to not marry? Do they want to be in a relationship? All these questions arise. We ask why someone is not married rather than why someone is. If that person is wearing a ring, then I wonder what their spouse is like. I also wonder why they did get married. I'm so...relieved...that I chose to not marry either of my fiancés. I had a hard time finding the right word. Am I glad? Yes. Am I happy? Yes, but that's not quite it. It's relief that I chose to not go down that path. I can barely tolerate my current path (regarding my living and financial situation), but it leads me in the right direction. I wonder where I would be if I got married. I highly doubt where I am now. Most likely divorced. Maybe I would be here now, regardless of whether I got married or not.

People have made the argument that marriage has lost its meaning. It's not the revered institution it once was. While in a sense that's true, but it still holds some value. Of course probably most people are divorced, which can be interpreted as disregarding the sanctity of marriage, but if it has no meaning, then why do people get married in the first place? As said earlier, it still holds status in society. It means something to be married. Why would gay people want the right to hold the same status so much? It is also the way in society to manifest your love to another person. To show the world that you love that person and commit yourself to him/her until death do you part. If you're not willing to take that leap, then you are scared of commitment or don't really love that person. Which of course is bullshit.

As I've been writing this, I've questioned myself if marriage is that important in society still. If someone deviates from getting married, being "normal," then I applaud them. My friend is going through a tough divorce, and I'm happy for her. She was in a bad marriage. I highly doubt she'll get married again. She has become into her own. It's not she wasn't her own self before. Now she's not attached to anyone. Well, she is until her divorce is finalized, but she broke that bond that held her to him, and him to her. She embodies an effervescent independence. She's passionate about feminism and the history of women and their role in society. When you're married, then you don't define yourself any longer. It's you and your spouse that defines you. You are not your own person anymore. At least that's how I see it. Another friend is her own person and nobody has a claim on her. She does what she wants and who she wants, and she loves every minute of it. A beautiful woman who is fiercely independent. There is a special freedom to not be attached to anyone. Although I live at home right now and rather attached to my parents (attached in the sort of way that I live with them and dependent on them, which I loathe everyday, but it's much different), I still enjoy that freedom everyday.

So, which is it? Maybe both. Maybe neither. This is what I think I no.

Qué sera, sera

Again, it's been too long since I last wrote. I actually wrote a few drafts, but never finished them so I deleted them. I'm listening to the rain pour outside my window. I can't sleep, thinking about the essays I need to finish, other things I need to take care of. I think of friends, and friends that don't seem so much like friends anymore, or friends I used to have. What constitutes a friend? Someone you can rely on? I don't have very many of those. Someone you feel that you can call and talk to when you feel down, or up? I probably have even fewer of those. Someone to call spontaneously to go out for a drink? No. Everyone has their own thing going on, whatever that thing is. Usually a spouse and/or kids. Or they're not interested. Listen to me. What a mope! I daydream of when I will build my house. What the foyer will look like. The living room. The media room. The kitchen. The gym with mirrors on opposite walls to check my form while doing yoga or dancing. My master bedroom with a walk-in closet and 5 piece bathroom. My tranquility room that overlooks a garden and floor-to-ceiling windows. A library filled with my books and my Gramma's books. Some people have a detached garage. I want a detached bar so the smoke doesn't permeate the rest of the house. I think of having Sarah, and Steven, Fransheila, and Frances with me. What their rooms would look like. What our lives would be like living together, me raising them. Getting Sarah into the very best schools. Going to Steven's soccer practices. Taking care of the babies. Cooking them healthy, wholesome meals everyday, instead of the crap they live on now. Teaching them all things they won't learn in school, like how to balance a checkbook. Although that is kind of becoming passe. How to pay bills online. Sarah and I doing yoga together. Steven and I throwing a football to each other. Or vice versa. I'll have special areas for my cats; inside and out. Maybe have two or three, or four dogs. Gardens. Maybe even an alpaca or two and make yarn from their wool, and blankets and scarves and sweaters and socks from the yarn. Just sittin' in my rocking chair on the front porch knittin' me some socks. Turn into a country granny by the time I'm 40. And then there's my practice. Despite my dreams of living in the country (but not too far in the country), I still want to be an abortion psychologist. Even though I'm far from starting a practice, it gives me a sense of...peace...to help people, or to think of helping people in the future. To help women who really need it. Then, of course, I want to become more involved in abortion rights. I want to work with politicians to secure rights for all women in the country. Make it a damn amendment. I've thought of becoming a politician myself, but I want to be a psychologist more, and I don't know if I have the fortitude to be a politician. I hope to god the political environment is better ten years from now than it is today. What nut jobs. And pansies. It's a house (and senate) full of nut jobs and pansies. I think it's worse now than the fifties. I know how I want my future to turn out, but will it be anything like that? I guess it's up to me.

Safe!

 I know this probably sounds stupid, but sometimes I'm afraid of being too much. Of rising above the soft murmur of everyday life and openly take a stand on something - to be a leader. I feel safe as a soft-spoken follower who doesn't make waves regardless of whether I think changes need to be made or not. I think that Eve Ensler wrote something similar to this. Then I fantasize about being the tireless volunteer who fights for her convictions, and having a relationship with politicians who can actually make these come to fruition. Of stirring things up like in the '60s and '70s with the protests and marches and sit-ins. Of looking retribution in the eye and relentlessly push forward. But keeping my head low, keeping to myself, doing my own thing is safer. Besides, who has time for all that? I may have time right now, and maybe had time over the summer, but I start school in five weeks [add hint of sarcasm]. What if I really achieved that? What if I fail? Can I fail? Can little ol' me really make a difference? I was talking to a woman at that potluck who was an activist in the '70s, and she said she can't believe how complacent my generation is. Where are the leaders? Why don't people care? I gave her the usual rhetoric, that people are self-centered, caught up in their own lives, think those issues don't really affect them, etc. But what is really so different from 40 years ago? She said that someone needs to take a stand and motivate the young people. I felt like she was talking to me, and maybe she was. I wouldn't even know how to go about something like that. Could I get people to care in such an apathetic environment? Do I personally want to motivate people to care, and to do something about it? I really don't know the answer to that question.

"I wanted to be the first woman to burn her bra, but it would have taken the fire department four days to put it out." -Dolly Parton

Horse and Carriage

Lake Quinault, one of my favorite places

From the encouragement of a friend, I decided to finally start writing in my blog again. I took such a long sabbatical on account of school, and other pressing matters, but mostly school. I've been writing a theory paper for what seems like a year for a women's studies class. I picked the subject of the impact of Eurocentric capitalist patriarchy on the Native American woman. Interesting, yes. Theoretical, not so much. But I was too stubborn to pick another topic (a taurus thru and thru), and wanted to write on a topic close to my heart. I liked it because it is challenging, and a topic I doubted other students would write about. At least in my class. Even as I attempt to free-write now, I come to an impasse about what specifically my theory is, which was rather stupid of me to try to write a theory paper without knowing what my theory is; just a vague subject. My teacher tried to warn me more than once, but I obviously didn't heed them; determined to write about this matter - that I could do it.

Over these last months, I reflected on my conceptions of marriage and motherhood in relation to the patriarchal ideologies of these matters. I decided that I don't want to marry anyone (except maybe myself) or have children (of my own at least). Maybe I stated this in a previous post. I even want to sell my eggs if i can. That brings in quite a few bucks. Yes, I think the world is overpopulated as it is, but if there's a woman out there that really wants a baby and she's infertile, and I can help, it would make me happy to make that dream a reality for her. And also for the money. Marriage is only to support patriarchy. Or was I should say. I think many marriages enjoy an egalitarian relationship. However, it was instituted in the name of patriarchy, that women must be taken care of. It ensured her a future of domesticity while the man went out to earn the money and had other opportunities. He had a sense of the world. That made her totally dependent on him. I feel like I would be doing what I'm supposed to do, which the rebellious side of me pushes back against. I wouldn't be opposed to marriage if I fell in love with someone and wanted to commit myself to that person for the rest of my life. But again, I have my convictions of marriage. I'm more happy to hear about divorces than marriages. I know far more many that haven't worked out than had. However, I don't hold any contempt for people who do get married or want to get married. Right now, I don't feel that I need it to show, or prove, my love with a marriage to anyone. It just seems that not long ago I wanted what many young women want, a heterosexual marriage and children. Not anymore. When I said I didn't want children of my own, it's because I may want to be a foster parent, if I have the strength, conviction, and money (and energy). I wish I could start with children in my own family. Little Sarah, Stephen, Fransheila, and Frances - Allien's kids. My worthless cousin in Alaska whose own mother told my family that she's a drug addict, and I think she sells as well. She's been to jail a few times. Stephen's father has custody of him, but my uncle thinks that he hits him and neglects him, such as not feeding him enough, or at all. If I had the means, then I know those babies would get a good education, good healthcare, love, attention, support, and encouragement with me. Sarah (9) and Stephen (7 or 8) aren't exactly babies, but they still are. Fransheila is only 18 mos. and Frances is a little baby. From the brief time I spent with Sarah, she's shown much more maturity, sense of responsibility, compassion, and thoughtfulness that would never dawn on her mother. And she knows her mother, how she is. She's also smart as a whip. I don't know why a whip is smart, but that's how the saying goes. She's always excelled in school. I want her to realize her full potential and have opportunities. I also want her away from her mother, in fear that in a few years she will start down that path, as Allien went down her mother's path. I don't need to have my own children when so many out there need a compassionate loving guardian who's not afraid to show tough love. That's what scares me about being a foster parent. I want to work with teenagers; the ones who need the most help. The ones that have been shipped from home to home with no sense of security and trust. The jaded ones. I want to be that person they can learn to trust and have a permanent home with me. That I'll be there for them when they do stupid shit, which is almost inevitable, and not ship them away again. But then I can't trust them myself. At least not in the beginning. I'd be afraid of them stealing my grandmother's wedding ring to pawn for drugs. My older cousin, Stephen, was in numerous foster homes where he was abused until he was 12 and landed himself in juvie, and hadn't really been out since. He's about 30 now. I haven't seen him in years. I keep promising myself that I will find him, a promise so far I've failed to keep. I always have so much to do. That's an excuse, not a reason. I want him to know that not all of his family gave up on him. Fred, his step-father who adopted him, my mother's brother, died 5 yrs ago, and that's all Steve had. Fred had nothing to do with him being in foster homes, and horrors his mother put him through. Fred loved him.

Next topic, I said I'd marry myself. Of course I want my dream wedding. But it would be my wedding with my friends where I want to have it (Lake Quinault). No wonder women so much look forward to their wedding day. A big party for you (and the person you're marrying), with a new dress, new jewelry (not from the street fair), and a nice trip afterwards! One on hand, marrying myself is still marrying, even though it isn't the conventional marriage. On the other hand, I see it as committing to yourself what you commit to your partner - to always be there for yourself, through sickness and in health. As I said before, you are the only person you can really count on when it comes to it. You can't count on other people, no matter how much you love them and think they love you. Christina, my "best friend," married earlier this month. Her cousin married the month before. This past Sunday I visited my friend in the hospital who was preparing for the birth of her 2nd child. I, being the only non-mother, sat for a few hours in the room listening to her, her sister-in-law, mother-in-law, her aunt, and her mother talk about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and the first precious few years of motherhood. But of course, they were awaiting the arrival of the newest family member. One on hand, I wished I had something to share, but none were my experiences. I did briefly talk about my own birth, from what I've been told. At times like these I wonder if I'm missing out. Or is it upbringing and society that enforces this ideal of motherhood that women fall into? I think it's a choice to marry more than it ever has been, however I think it's still encouraged by media and society itself. I also think that it is natural - apart from societal influence - to want a baby. Instinct maybe? To want to procreate, when you get down to our animalistic attributes. The females in any species I know of share that same goal, for the survival of their species, whether this enters into a woman's mind or not. I've actually contemplated having a child with a full blood Native to do my part in raising the Native population. But that would be the only reason. S/he would at least be 3/4 Native. Did you know that in 2008, Natives represented 1.5% of the total population in the US? I'd like to help with that. I also think it's natural for people to not want children. Actually, that also happens in the wild kingdom, or the zoo kingdom - of mothers abandoning their young. So, obviously, we're not all different from them.

The Women

It's been an chaotic week, hence why I haven't posted a blog in four days. My mother told me that she wanted to kill herself, my grandmother might have been raped, I got a speeding ticket and my body is trying to come down with a cold, and as usual I have a ton of homework. This drawing is one of my favorite works by my favorite artist, Vincent van Gogh.

Wednesday morning I walked out to the patio to have a cigarette where my parents were already having one. I could see that Carmen was very upset and looked very worn down. She told me she woke up, saw the piles of paperwork that needed to be done, thought of everything else that needed to be done, tired of living in a house that looks the way it is, and felt the only way to escape it all is if she was no longer alive. She couldn't think of any reason why to not take the pills she set out that she knew would kill her. By that time she was crying and I was fighting back tears myself. I've thought in the past of what a relief it will be when she does die, but I didn't want it to happen like this. I know I sound like a horrible daughter, and maybe I am. I feel like I'll never be able to get out from under her until she herself is six feet under. But right then and there, I didn't want her to die, I didn't want her to kill herself. She said she really didn't think I would care if she did. I said things in the past that I know hurt her - some things she was never supposed to hear, like when I told a friend that I didn't think she would live another five years and I told Momma that she was my natural mother and Carmen is just my biological mother. I don't want to believe that this crazy person who never accomplished anything or did anything with her life, except raise me, is my real mother. She's illogical, irrational, and has no common sense. But since I was born, her life was about me and only me. She's done everything she can to give me every opportunity and was always there, usually when I didn't ask her to be, but there were a lot of times I'm glad she was. She kept repeating that she wasn't telling dad and me this to make us feel guilty, that she just needed to talk. I believe her. I felt guilty anyway, because I know I contributed to her depression. When I said those things, I was coming from an angry and resentful place. That's more of an excuse than a reason, isn't it? I told Diego what Carmen said and that I felt guilty for at least some of her depression, and he told me to not feel guilty. It's not my fault. "Your mother is a little nuts."

Wednesday night I studied and finished my assignment for women's studies (wmst), and was so proud of myself. I stayed up until 3 or so. I found it impossible to concentrate. Every time I sat down to read, my mind went in 100 different directions. I actually didn't get all that much studying done for my psychology exam. I thought about telling my wmst professor that I chose to study for that over doing her assignment, but I wanted to do it all, and I didn't want to turn in yet another late assignment. It's not her problem I can't concentrate, or that I had an exam that day. Then I totally misunderstood the article I wrote on and ended up not turning it in anyway. Thursday morning, after almost five hours of sleep, I hurried to my physical therapy appointment, and got a speeding ticket on the way of course. While the officer was writing my ticket, I burst into tears. I was still crying when I got to PT. My therapist, Rick, sat me down and asked me the problem. I told him about Carmen and the speeding ticket (I still haven't told my parents about that). He had me lay down on the table while he gave me a nice massage. I could see snot oozing out of my nose, dripping onto the support bar beneath my face. When he was done, I used the cloth I rest my face on to wipe my nose and the bar, and threw it in the hamper. I went into one of the rooms where I found some tissue to blow my nose. I looked in the mirror and I looked like I've been punched in both eyes, without the bruising. They were totally swollen. He didn't make me do exercises. I just had heat and electrical stimulation on my back. I did some studying on the bus on my way to school. After wmst, Dr. Mower and I walked out together. When I tried to tell her about Carmen, I started crying again, and told her about my speeding ticket, my lack of sleep and the exam I had after her class. She encouraged me to ask my psych teacher if I could take it at a later time. I knew I would do horribly on it, for lack of studying and I was completely exhausted. I didn't want to ask that of my teacher, but I want to get a good grade too. "It's ok to ask for help." She gave me a big hug, giving me strength, and I hugged her back. She has her own devils she's dealing with. My psych teacher told me that I could take the test on Tuesday with no penalty. "We're here to help you, not to beat you up." I wonder if it had anything to do with me crying so hard I could barely talk? I'm grateful that I have the teachers I do.

So now we come to yesterday, my deceased grandmother's birthday. Carmen gets a call early in the morning from one of the nurses where my gramma stays. She said Gramma said she was raped the night before. Wow! I had a doctor's appointment and I woke up with a sore throat (coincidentally one had nothing to do with the other), so I stayed home. I don't want to make my grandmother sick after she's been raped, especially since she's prone to pneumonia. Would that be double matricide? Driving my mother to suicide and killing her mother with a sore throat? My mother and I share the same doctor, so I tell her about mom's depression. She told me to call her psychiatrist and psychologist. Dr. Mower encouraged me to do the same. I get there a little late because I forgot to give myself time to take the back route. I'm on foot. The sidewalks are all torn up on the main street. It takes me 15 minutes instead of under 10. I'm so glad my doctor is so close. Because I'm late, my doctor sees another patient first. I end up waiting over an hour in the exam room. I wear a mask in case I have something contagious. Rachel is pregnant and I would feel horrible if I gave her anything. My back really hurts and I'm so tired I decide to dim the lights and lay down on the table. She walks in and says, "My chart says you're here for a follow up on your depression, but you're wearing a mask and laying on the table." My depression seems to be under control. This week was especially hard, so I feel run down, but not particularly sad or in despair.

I walk home, and feel totally exhausted. Dee calls, Carmen's best friend, probably wanting to know why Gramma is in the hospital, but I don't feel like talking to her. I decide to go to bed and wake up around 4. I eat a whole pint of tomato bisque with two breadsticks from Olive Garden. I keep telling myself I need to start on homework, but I'm just too tired. I go back to my room around 7 and check facebook. I hear my parents come in around 8, but I don't go out at first. I don't want to know. I eventually go to the living room and ask mom what happened. She said there was no bruising or signs of rape, but Gramma said he didn't actually penetrate her, that he laid on top of her and fondled her breasts and genitals. We don't know whether to believe it or not. We don't think she's lying, but she's talked stories before, like she and a Seahawks football player were lovers, and she and one of the male aides (who's younger than me) were going to get married. She fully believed in them. We don't know if they were dreams or what. But what if this did happen? Who would do this? Why didn't the aides see someone? Why didn't Gramma call for someone? The whole thing is very disturbing. Life is very disturbing.

"I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full." ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar