There are two things that I want to say:
1.) That there always seems to be a new The Killers album out just when I am going through a major life change. How do they do it; how do they know? I may never know, but this certainly secures them in my Top Five for life, simply based on timing and relate-ability. Are The Killers to me what The Clash is to Anderson Cooper? Who knows? I don't know, but time may tell.
And: 2.) That this has to be a new beginning, because I have believed I would get one at one point in my life, and, honestly, I have never seen it happen. I have seen the opportunity, and I have seen myself ignore it, over look it, or fail it miserably. In fact, this is a major fail, one that I am attempting to pull out of. And this is it: I have to, or I will go back to Oklahoma, I will be forced to live with my mother through college, and I will stay there until I am out of school, doing what I consider the safe, boring, and very not like me thing. And I say it isn't like me, when really it is, that I roll over and rely on the situation to make it okay, to sort itself out. That part of me has to die; it has to stop here, because look at where it has gotten me. I do not want to go back to Oklahoma, no matter who might be living there that I love, or what might be easier if I did. I want to do this, get on my feet, and be forever from this time on, capable.
Up until this moment, I have put on quite the show of seeming to be, but I know, and I am sure you do, that I am not. I am not because I have allowed myself to be distracted from what really needs to be done. I have allowed myself to ignore the steps and to daydream instead of move forward. And, yes, I have done my fair share of moving forward, but I did it in an impatient hurry. A hurry that put me in an apartment in Uptown Chicago with nothing; a hurry that put me in a situation with the girl who bought my car which is now, possibly, resolved, but I have no way of knowing; a situation that didn't take care of my debt, but helped make it impossible for me to. I hurried, back to Chicago, back to school, back into a life that I was never ready for, be it the first time I moved or today. So this has to be a new beginning, simply in that I need to be ready to live, or else I should just turn around, break my lease, and return to Oklahoma, self-scorned and even more bitter and cynical than when I began, or than I am now--which is a sizable amount of cynicism, if you ask me.
This is my chance to finally buckle down, become responsible the way I told myself and everyone else I was. This is my chance to find a job that will help build a career, to finally pay off all of my debt, to save money for the next time I need something to fall onto. This is my chance to do what I have been telling myself I would for so long--to get back to who I was, to what I believed in, and to what I wanted. And to take with me all of the lessons I have been forced to learn, and all of the lessons I will soon learn.
This isn't something I am just saying, this isn't something I am just writing to make myself and everyone think I am in control. I am not in control, and this is a revelation that I need to be. I need to be on top, I need to be whole and together, I need to trust myself with money. I need to trust that, when things are right, when I have made them right, things will come together and I will be who I want to be, who I cannot be yet, who I am incapable of being because I haven't opened myself up completely to all of the possibilities of me.
So, I am returning to basics. Today I bought a cup of coffee, stirred in three sugars and cream, and sat down with my laptop at Starbucks, where I have always felt at home, even before I worked there. And it was just as it was, me drinking coffee the way I used to, two years ago--even though today it doesn't taste as great, and I long for the breve I typically use, but can't afford--me sitting in a Starbucks, not as a partner relying on her job to help make do or offer comfort, but as a student, as a writer, as a hopeful kid. I am going back to that, to when I could dream of nothing but writing and becoming a journalist. I am going back to studying politics and the Middle East, going back to blogging about world affairs and foreign policy. Going back to that kid who thought everything was possible and was confident that everything would work out, even when it looked as if it never could.
But, I am taking with me the understanding that I can't just dream and it will come true--a notion which has plagued me since childhood. I am going back as a person who understands hard work is the key to long term happiness and success, that there is nothing rare about pride and it can blur opportunities, and that there is someone I want to be, who I can be, if I just make it happen and stop dreaming I already have. I am taking with me this desire to be better, which has always been a desire, and has always--I thought--been a reality, if I can make it. I am also taking with me the desire to study medicine, because I believe it brings out in me a competitive, logical person, who is rational and smart. A person that isn't always around when I think about writing, which brings out creativity, certainly, and hope and pride, but doesn't fulfill everything I need to pull through this situation and make myself into something. I need to take the fierceness of a surgical career, of a competitive field such as medicine and apply it to everything. I need to step up, stop rolling over, and be the person I thought for sure I was. I need to fight.
And I am ready. I am tired of sitting down, waiting for something to resolve. I am tired of being treating like I am naive. Yes, I know, I am. But, I believe I can work it out, and there is nothing wrong with belief, or with faith, or with hope. It may be naive, but it helps get things done. In fact, it's necessary to get things done. Nothing can be accomplished if someone hasn't invested their faith and their hope into it. Faith is what it takes; and maybe that is naive, but it is also true.
So, I am going to stand up. This is my chance to do it; to make something of myself, which I can accurately say is no one and nothing as of right now. I have been reduced to nothing over the course of my life, the last five years helping to break me down to something I never wanted to be and someone I don't understand. I am no one, I am nothing, and this isn't a bad thing. This is a chance to build, to reverse everything, to finally learn a lesson or two. This is the chance to turn my nothing self into someone to be proud of, someone who has a voice, someone who can take care of herself and isn't afraid to defend herself. I am going to go back to that person with all those ambitions, add a few more, and take with me all the lessons I have learned about making those ambitions reality. I am going to start studying again, blogging again, diving into what is happening in the world and, very importantly, with our country. I am going to find a job, work as much as I can, pay off my debt and build my savings, and I am going to return to school in August.
I am going to write, not only in this blog about current events, but every day work on fiction and essays I have been writing in my head for months, years. I am going to finally develop the ideas that have been gnawing at my head and growing in my heart. I am going to plant seeds and start watering the ones I planted long ago. And I am not going to take no for an answer. I am not going to let anyone get away with hurting me. I am not going to roll over, let it be; I am going to make it be the way it should be, the way it needs to be.
Right now, I am in serious debt for someone my age, and some of that debt wasn't initially my fault, but I was the one who needed to step up and take responsibility. It isn't about blame, or whose fault it is, not anymore. Today it is about working it out. I am not going to do as my mother told me, to get a loan to cover my school debt. Her prerogative is to get me back in school, and I appreciate her ferocity at pushing that point. I want nothing more than to get back into school, which I want to stress, because I know she fears I will never want to go back. I have to go back, even if just for myself to say I did, I have to go back. But, I will not rid myself of debt with one person by putting myself into debt with another. So, I am going to instead to the "hard" thing, as she says I always do, and work the debt off. I am not going to compromise my credit score more than I already have, or my future finances, just so I can go back to school next semester. No matter when I start, I am starting at the same point, and I am not ever going to be eighteen again, that kid who didn't have a job, who relied on school for a purpose, and who allowed that purpose to go unfulfilled. I am never going to be that again; in that way I cannot go back. But, I can rid myself of the mistakes of my past by taking them upon myself and accepting responsibility.
No loan, not now; not until I can safely say I have enough and am smart enough financially, and stable enough, to go back full-time and take on the loans as a responsible adult, planning a future and a way to pay them off once I am through with my degrees.
So, I am going to work, as much as I can, and hopefully it will be at a job where I can make a name for myself. I am looking for something in the health care industry, where it's less likely I will lose my job, and I am looking for something I can build off of, something that will give me experience and recommendations when I need them.
And, I am going to write, every day, working to make a name for myself the way I planned to two years ago. Some days it will be working on literature that I hope to publish, some days it will be working in this blog to offer commentary on today's events and world affairs and maybe even a bit of news.
And I am going to push myself to be better in different ways. Taking the plunge into the kind of person I thought I was and would very much like to be. I came to the conclusion that I am not the person I thought I was, that I, in fact, became the entirely wrong person. I don't know how I got here, but I know that I have allowed myself to be angry and unhappy. I have done that to myself. If I have learned anything, and anything from my last few weeks at Starbucks, it's that I can be happy, I can be smart, and witty, and funny, and good. That, I can still be cynical, but like so many people I look up to, be happy with who I am and what I am doing in this moment, knowing that I am going somewhere. I don't have to have the perfect life to be happy, and I shouldn't be ashamed of myself when I smile at someone. I shouldn't be too proud to be that nice, pretty, happy girl. I want to be bright and shiny, I always have; and, as much as I enjoy being cynical and sarcastic, I have to understand I can be nice too. It isn't going to hurt me, or my pride, or my standing with others if I am a nice person. In fact, I am kind of under the impression that people may like me more. So, I am going to try to be both a good person, a kind person, a nice person, and that doesn't mean I have to give up on sarcasm or cynical commentary for which I have always wanted to be known.
I'm going to figure it out. I am not saying all of this to be proud, or to make you proud or think highly of me. Quite frankly, I haven't done anything that should make you think highly. I have been arrogant, and cocky, and a downright bitch. I have been full-of-it, all talk and no walk. I am going to step up, stand up, make a point, and be something better. Because, I have to.
So, if with or without me, it is what it is, and this is what I am going to do.
I’m sorry if you got all the way to this point and realized this post was really redundant and kind of stupid. I don’t deny those points, not at all. But, everything that needed to be said, things I was afraid to say, and things I am afraid to step up and do. I am not really asking anyone to be accountable for me, because I have to be accountable for myself, something I have never really done. This isn’t about approval or about what you think. It’s a declaration, a thesis statement, even, if you will. And I am putting it out here simply to say, this is what I am going to make myself do, who I am going to make myself become, and I hope it’s someone you can accept, because it’s someone I can accept. It’s my way to become that person I can be proud of, who is really, truly, very much like me.
And, The Killers...totally my Clash.
The Change Came in Disguise of Revelation
