All of You Men?

Can all of these men stop dropping bombs on people? Can all of these men stop telling me who I am? Can all of these men stop texting me unanswered for three weeks, sending me strange pictures of vaginas? Can these men stop being 16-year-old boys I have hope for instead of old, creepy boomers who I've already set aflame any positive expectations of in my various traditions of burning bonfires of trust for various men I now have to part with. It's depressing. Can all of these men stop calling me and leaving me very scary, overtly sexual voicemails? Or simple, yet deeply complex breathing voicemails? Can all of these men stop finding joy in the knowledge that they have power of fear over me? Can all of these men stop beating vulnerable people in the streets, and in prisons, and gay men, Trans, and their children for not subscribing to their religion, and women for not engaging in sex with them? Can all of these men just stop beating? Can all of these men stop explaining to me what I already know? Can all of these men stop promoting a story and culture in which the original woman was more inherently sinful, for their own personal gain? Can all of these men stop hiring me at restaurants so that they can flex their power through moving me back and forth from the position they hired me for; server, to host, to counter, then back?, because I am a seemingly agreeable young woman who in reality just really needs a job, and they want to see me in a dress, or see me vulnerably ask time and time again for what I was promised, or have the opportunity to passive aggressively demand a smile from me, or to force me to stay after shift to have a drink with them that I do not want, because their company is such a divine privilege that I must be so ungrateful to not acknowledge and accept. Can all of these men stop punishing me and us the next day at work when we don't stay after work for the free drink they so graciously demanded we enjoy with them? Can all of these men stop building strong relationships with us, offering us specific compliments void of sexual nature, giving the appearance of unconditional concern and care, then touching our knee and whispering in our ear in the manager's office later on? Can most of these men, also, stop being our dad's age and occasionally looking like our dad? Can all of these men stop treating jobs they offer us as quid pro quos for praise and insured agreement? Can all of these men stop telling us how we should of responded in sexual harassment situations when they lack the education of the psychology of what it feels like to find yourself paralyzed with fear, frozen into a moment of allowance. Agreeable allowance allows for disassociation. Disassociation makes it easier to forget. Right ladies? Can all of these men managers stop telling me that the bartender who always calls me sweetie, condescends me for sport, and touches my lower back at every close quarter opportunity, is the person in charge, and to listen to him and not take everything so seriously? Can all of these men that run stand-up comedy mics stop describing any of the female comics as adorable? Just, please? Can all of these men directors of plays stop lashing out at the young woman in the cast who seems the most likely to accept unnecessary, moody lashings by way of petulant children trapped in overweight, hairy, 50-year-old man bodies. WHY have you been conditioned to feel empowered to exercise your power in a toxic manner? Furthermore, why have you capitalized on it and chosen to cultivate such disgusting qualities? Why has SHE has been conditioned to accept and move through emotional abuse so gracefully at the ever-changing moods of grown men incapable of processing stress while making choices as the corpus callosum will not allow? Can all of these men stop trying so desperately to belittle my opinions on social media through personally attacking me as someone who “probably watches The Bachelor”? Can all of these men stop attacking my ideas with personal attacks, period? Can all of these men stop positioning themselves as the all-knowing authorities on morality? Can all of these men stop trying to shame us, while simultaneously romantically pursuing us, in order to weaken our self worth so that we may feel so empty and lost that we seek something in them? Can all of these men driving Lyfts and Ubers stop asking me to sit in the front seat and putting their hands up my skirt when I'm tipsy and clearly too trusting of men in general? Because god forbid a young millennial woman chooses hope in the face of reality and makes the bold decision to view men as humans and not as the freaks they are, consistently objectifying young women. Can all self-righteous male chefs, and also, underpaid and undervalued men of the kitchens of the restaurants I work in stop laughing at me when I ask for a missing item for my table, or guest's food? Maybe you did give it to me, and I made a mistake because I'm a human, and I mess up ALL THE TIME, but often, you didn't, and just because I'm a young, silly girl, does not make me stupid, or someone who should be put in a position to have to beg for a caesar dressing for Tom. Can all of these men stop describing women's sexual choices as unattractive, as if they are the ultimate authority on what is attractive? Most of you don't even own pants that fit so I don't know who you think you are. Can all of these men stop re-iterating the amount of money they have spent on dates with women? Can they also stop describing the woman's choice to not engage in sexual relations with them following said date as “fine, it's whatever, but you know, I mean I spent like $150 on her, and we were together all day, but, that's how they are.”? Can men stop describing us as “they”? Can other men stop describing us as “some women”? “You know, not all women, but some, crazy, liberal women”? Can all of these men please stop using public figures of women who actively work to silence feminists as examples of good or more sane women? Anyone working to silence anyone is working against understanding. Can all of these men stop touching our heads in forceful ways, pulling it towards their crotch in their cars in front of Yogurtlands? You guys are freaks and we would never do that to you. Why? Because we don't feel ownership over your body. Also, maybe I don't want to hold your hand. So, how about not making me? Can all of these men stop telling their wives who to vote for and what to care about? Can all of these men stop telling other men who to love? Can all of these men stop telling all people who to love and how? Can all of these men stop telling other men what rights to support and which are too much? Can all of these men in authority positions stop punishing me for not laughing at their jokes or smiling at them through firing me, or cutting my shifts, or spreading gossip about me, or not casting me or making an effort to embarrass me in a public setting, more often than not, in order to make me appear stupid, silence me, or discredit my voice? Can all of these same ego driven, sensitive men stop claiming that women and socially conscious men are too sensitive to be effective voices in positions of power? Can all of these men stop wanting power more than anything? Can all of these men stop pursuing power? Can all of these men stop giving other men who want power, the right to have it, simply because they want it, and not because they are deserving or decent or diplomatic or clear leaders? Can you guys PLEASE stop defending men in power that commit violent, inhumane acts against others? Can all of these men stop enjoying oppressing others? Can all of these men stop pretending to appease women?, especially those women they claim to value and share a paramount, intimate relationship with? Can all of these men stop perpetuating the notion that apologizing makes you weak? Or that conceding to new ideas or change makes you less principled? Or that men who view their female partner as an equal are just pretending? Can all of these men stop perpetuating the lie that men of other races are either more violent or more feminine, in order to attempt to strip other men of the freedom to feel or live into the dimensional, sensitive, living being they are, because that's not appropriate. Can all of these men stop using the word appropriate in relationship to women's choices? Can all of these educated, caring men stop trying to have the very big, important conversation of classism and capitalism, while avoiding the topics of racism and misogyny, because “they are all tied together”? Even if technically this can sort of be true, and this knowledge you have  is knowledge you have cultivated which can be helpful, this is still an active choice to softly invalidate racism and misogyny and it's incredible, perennial effects. *There is nothing soft about the invalidation of racial and gender issues. Can all of these men please stop reminding us of what a horrible candidate Hillary was for president? Most of us know. But if you think for one second that we don't deeply fear that it wasn't just because she was a poor candidate, but more than anything, that she was a woman, then you don't know us at all. If you think that reality doesn't devastate us, keep us up at night, disturb our relationships with men, or command power over us, you are wrong. Can all of you men stop claiming to not associate with third wave feminism because Lena Dunham does? We are more important than your disdain for Lena Dunham. And if she's so stupid and pointless then you should have no problem overlooking her existence in order to care about women. Can all of you in that same group please stop condescending our passion about feminists topics with guilt about the heinous and horrific sex trafficking and more severe misogynistic cultures in other countries? Again, please STOP telling us that we can't care about less severe injustices towards women because more severe injustices are happening every second of every day. We know. And we know what entitled pricks we can sometimes be, but, as humans, not as women. That's the difference. In painting us as being entitled in our concern and demands for equal rights, because you are “nice” to us, you are finding yourself in the position of ultimate entitlement. So, stop. Also, we don't have to be extra grateful to you for treating us with decency because so many men in the world don't do the same. That's not how decency works. So please stop expecting that. Can all of you men stop telling women who they should be dating? Can you also stop trying so hard to sell these women the narrative that they would never be able to date men of other races because those men are “different”?, i.e. more likely to objectify, more likely to be aggressive, not emotionally strong enough, too feminine, too boring, & other various racist culture insults and other-thans. Can all of you men stop using so much of your energy and effort towards finding new, creative ways to hate and try to discredit and de-fund Planned Parenthood? Many of you have daughters who found refuge there when they were 16 and too ashamed, due to the culture you created, to be honest with you. Affordable access to health care for ALL women is important. Women feeling safe is important. Can all of you men stop following women around clubs that keep moving into their circle of friends, and away from you? This is intentional. We have all labeled you a threat and want you to leave us, and her, alone. Can all of you men just be cool? Can you please just TRY to see the world in a more racial and gender and class structured and capitalist controlled lens?, even if that lens does serve you and it may be difficult to acknowledge your privilege. Can you please just be more mindful of your relationships with us and the causes you denote worth to and the adjectives you use to describe us? Can all of you please just try to see? Can all of you please just listen?  

Et Ceteras

So this Monday was supposed to be the day that I went to both Kickboxing and Body Pump, before 11 a.m. I was going to write a short film and memorize a script for an audition. I was going to maybe go to "Hip Hop 3 with Mike" at night. I need the mental workout. And the fun. Choreography wards off Alzheimers, and 24 is just the right time in life to be warding off Alzheimers. I was going to do 20 minutes of Duolingo. I was going to eat vegan, one hundred, meaning no Snap Pea crisps or milk chocolate. I have Monday off. I am young, vital, sexy, capable, self-loving, and ready. This is the narrative I wrote in my head for myself on Sunday night, in bed, watching the new episode of Girls, followed by Togetherness, drinking beer by myself and living in the filth that was a day of skipped Nike Training Club (because I didn't feel like it), improv practice I was 20-minutes late to, and 2 days unshowered for (sorry), an overpriced Starbucks iced coffee (not only against my 2-month caffeine cleanse but also, sincerely, the WORST quality coffee chain of all fucking time), a comedy workshop where I felt my voice drowned out by other comedy writers (you can probably imagine those type of humans) and two free samples of chicken salad at Pavilions (because if I don't actually buy it, I'm still like, food-consumer-vegan, right?!, or ish?).

I came home from the glory of my self sabotaging Sunday to write another story for myself. That's what we do in LA. I'm an LA resident. Identifiers would be; resident, actress, server of Vietnamese, occasional stand-up comedienne, sketch writer, more so short film comedy writer, etc. Etc. is like, girl that dances full out at The Brig in Venice when no one else is, or that eats unwashed, giant carrots in her car in the LA traffic, dipped in hummus in my lap on good days, and nutella on the bad, or girl who is told she should not be threatened by the existence of Paris Hilton, by suffocatingly narcissistic Beverly Hills PR lawyers who are trying to hook up with her, because "baby, you're pretty too". Don't worry guys, I'm pretty too…… Etc. is like, doesn't wear a bra normally, and reads as free and cool enough to do that, but almost always feels weird about it, even though it's definitely because I just hate all of my bras and don't wanna buy any new ones. But what is etc., really? Because I'm starting to think that it's the stream of consciousness that runs through my mind when my guy friend tells me he couldn't hook up with the girl from the restaurant he works at, who is oddly absorbed in his every word, even though she is far out of his league, unbeknownst to him. He enumerates how she just doesn't feel like someone he could be truly interested in, or even worse, outlines her deficiency in living up to his cleanliness (i.e. shaved) standards, down there. In this moment all I can think is, if you were walking on a sidewalk, you would walk in the middle, even if it was raining and you were carrying an umbrella. Like, that's who you are. You are a middle of the sidewalk, walker. You are the person that eats the grapes in the grocery store, but leaves the stems. IF YOU ARE GOING TO EAT THE GRAPES, EAT THE GRAPES, It's fine. Everyone does it. But TAKE THEM, PUT THEM IN YOUR CART, WALK AROUND, EAT THEM TO YOUR DISCRETION, AND THROW AWAY THE STEMS. No one wants to come home with nothing at the end of their grape stems. Life has enough disappointment.

Maybe etc. is all the salt and pepper in my bed right now. I like to eat avocados in bed. I've been wondering if bugs fuck with salt and pepper. I'm gonna solve that science fair project question soon I guess. It'll be the first one I actually tested myself. You know those nights when you get fully ready for bed and it's 10 p.m. and you're like, tonight is the night to be an adult and get adequate sleep and I have flossed my teeth. But then you decide to eat 2 avocados in your bed. And you decide to see what all of the Donald Trump supporters on Facebook are up to. And you decide to start picking at the zit on your face that might be a zit or might be skin cancer, because there is no grey area in the life of twenty-something skin practices. You write out what you want read at your funeral if it's skin cancer and you only have 2 months to live. You realize how destructive and pointless all of these decisions are. You check in with yourself and realize that these are all practices you have found yourself doing because you just want to be fucked well, by someone who can love you but not obtain rights to you, someone who will feed you a weed cookie in bed, then exchange metaphorical, critical thoughts about Black Lives Matter, both supporting of the cause, in their own abstract, specific ways. You realize that you just want the Beverly Hills egg bank to accept your fucking eggs! You just need the money to go to Israel to see Donna and to be a young person who is fucking alive and exploring. The etc. is your twenty-something experience I guess.

I'm a twenty-something. And we're pretty into our identifiers. But maybe who we actually are is our et ceteras. I mean, what those really mean is, our, "and so forth[s]" anyway. I know. I looked it up. Our and so forth is the acknowledgement that there is more. There is more to come, to learn, to do, more habits to form, more avocados to eat in bed, or to stop eating in bed. There will be more of our self involved dude friends to finally honestly check, with love of course, on all the male privilege. And so forth, we are so many things, and ready to be so many things. I think the et cetera starts with ownership. What I've come to in writing this random conglomeration of bullshit, honest, nonsense is a moral. Because you can't have a story without a moral, right? You can, but, it doesn't serve my current agenda as far as what this article probably needs to be, so, I've decided that the et cetera is the ownership of all of who we are, so that we can fully be the original, interesting, dynamic, fucking-alive-when-no-one-else-is, cool as fuck individuals that we've been called to be. I am a twenty-something badass bitch that moved across the country to pursue my dreams. I am a twenty-something, bold, funny, actress and writer. I am a twenty-something who has been fully engulfed in a blinding, passionate, terrifying love. I guess I'm also a twenty-something that eats chemicals and GMOs on my carrots even though I champion the notion of food labeling publicly. I think when we own the et cetera, we make the choice to be a human in a room with someone else. And that is all we've actually been called to do in life.

There Is Nothing More Basic

It's not the memories exactly that seem to be irritating me. I guess it's an attempt at reconciling the acknowledgement that you can share such enormous chunks of beautiful moments, ideals, and virgin feelings with another person and that those can so easily be cheapened (in appearance, at least) through that person either repeating those, so easily, with another, or simply making decisions or building relationships that go directly against the version of that human that you not only knew, but believed so righteously in the moment that you had some sort of original patent on. And I can't decide exactly whether to feel stupid, confused, or… pathetic? Whatever feeling I'm feeling, I have felt before. It is one that aggressively begs me to summon the gods of all that is basic and answer my plea. Is this not the most basic shit?! It is. It is basic. This word is one that I find my fellow youths taking for granted, all too often, and using it in my very least favorite way; to shine dark on women as one-dimensional, less than fully valuable characters. Used specifically in comparison to otherwise superior, multi-dimensional female characters. But I love this word, when used as more of an edifice. It is one that deserves true, rare, savory grit. So allow me to indulge in this.

There is nothing more basic than the ability to easily disengage from a connection of which you claimed once possessed monumental importance. Honorable relationships are not something to be extricated from. Say you're a cop who wants to turn in your badge to go pursue your truest dream of accounting. You don't turn it in, cry, claim ultimate appreciation and loyalty to your memories with the force then ride out down the street, a few weeks later to start working for the force a county over as their new accountant, rubbing shoulders with the old, ex-nemesis (by association) crew. There is a choice, always, to honor a past with someone (friend, family, love, work) or to weaken the currency of what made those defining moments so particular and unique through painting over them in a discrediting way.

Now look, I get it. I get the whole past is the past, future is the future, today is the day to eat the bread and tell someone they're beautiful. And homegirl is not about past dwelling. But there is something to be said about those that can set aside what once looked like fully lived-in, unconscious, blinding, open love to slide right back into intimacy versus those that do what they can to properly and independently obsess over memories, gained insight, intricacies of smells and sweatshirts and specificity of laughter in order to truly honor that human being that you shared life's pie with as the whole, entirety of person that you once affirmed that they were, in the very least, in relationship to you.

I've hung out with two Sagittarius men in my past year of life. Both strangers. The first informed me of his dating history. The detail in which he recanted the lines and curves of the exe's personality, time spent with, downfall, and divine, as well as otherworldly moments shared, filled me up. There was something pure about it, especially when he described the one that was clearly most special to him. They were together for a year, him and his first love. He followed that year surfing and nothing but on a foreign island that he ran away to in order to escape her images and place association in his mind. But he told me it was years before he was mentally checked out from the relationship. The second guy described the depth of his love for his ex with a fluidity that made me wonder, just for a moment, if there really was someone out there who could stare into Ann Coulter's eyes and care for her. Regardless, being around these dudes sharing such information with me showed me that when someone truly invests in living fully while sharing life with you, there will be an ultimate respect and honor that can not be escaped. It is not something that can easily be wiped out, traded in for, or burned over top of the initial song.

The truth is, I loved someone and he loved me. Cis relationship commiseration right? Sooooo unique. He moved on and I feel left stripped of self, nude and colorless, forced into shedding a coat that I need to stay warm. In the cold, I am learning too much about myself too quickly. I feel punished through karma's violent assaults, and also shame in the harm I've caused while projecting my pain onto my love. My pain sourced from heavy, pushing pressure of growth. We both had that pain. Differently, at different times. Light, short breaths could be heard in the silence between one another. The fear of wanting different things amidst the ravaging, passionate co-dependence we had cultivated between eyelash memorization and pheromone chemistry seemed so impossible that it be better to hold our breaths between one another in refusal of acknowledging the silence, or allowing the moment to move forward, or the cells in our bodies to take note through establishing breath, which just might establish the consciousness of the most terrifying notion, the reality of distance. I lack the emotional strength to accept the mountain of effort I now must denote to working through my past so that I may phoenix into my future. Right now. This is momentary. Fleeting. Time heals. And for many of us, only time. I need more. Until then, I am left with perspectives I have to choose to protect my sensitive, shattered, shame-filled heart. I choose to see him as basic, and her as well. To move on so quickly from a love like mine, is his right as a human, as a lover, as a person more deserving of wild experience and eternal love than anyone I've ever known, or sometimes I fear, might ever know. But still, from me? There is nothing more basic.

I don't know

               My coherent incoherency was as endless as the day itself. The warm water was glistening around me whispering beautiful coos and hums, as if inviting me to stay in its body forever. I felt as if we would stay forever. I believed that we would be that close, that fun, that safe and silly and free and daring and confidant forever. Silly is my favorite luxury, and also the first insult I ever got in trouble for. If someone had told me that any young boy or moment or fight with my parents or job interview let down would have ever thieved any of our individual boldness from us, infecting the others with insecurity, I would’ve laughed in their face. I was as much in love with those girls as I envisioned myself loving my own future daughters. They were my peers, but so much more.

 I’ve never understood others when they recall memories from the past and describe them with such detail yet claim that they didn’t know how good that memory was while they were living it. In every big, meaningful stepping stone and glistening second of effortless happiness I have known it as a moment that would stay with me forever. I have looked around and devoted more mental energy into that stream of conscious minutes than any test I’ve ever taken, knowing full well that my current state of being was one I would recall to future children at some point, shaping me into new, unrecognizable versions of myself, having known more fulfillment than I ever could of asked for.

 I wonder if we can truly hone in on it, our moments of blinding light, if we don’t live our moments of deafening dark with the same vigor? People claiming to be living but dead to half of themselves. We’re made up by particles and atoms, but demand the freedom of the full feeling of life. Feeling, emotion, that’s what drives our lives isn’t it? Why are we doing ourselves a disservice in running from the uncomfortable? You know what makes me uncomfortable? The phone rings and it’s my dad. Or I turn off the interstate after my four hour drive south into my small, southwest Virginia, Appalachian town, and social anxiety creeps in, holding me captive. The ever expected and predictable, earth shattering question; What are your plans after graduation? I mean, come on, do any of our elders (all respect implied) really have the right to ask us such a question in this economy, this day in age? No one really knows where they’re going or what they’re doing, or no one that’s worth a good conversation anyway. But you see, I’m not allowed to run. I have no rights in escapism. Well, there’s school, Richmond, the city, my friends, buttttt I still allow those dreaded moments to infiltrate my self-perception, my psyche, because, just maybe, I need the push. I need the accountability. I need to damn well believe in myself with ten times the confidence it takes to say “You know, I don’t really know where I’m going, but I know that I want to write. I know that I want to live in a city that I love. I know that I want to speak to women and America. I know that I will make myself proud. I know that my ambition and work ethic will work for me. I know that I won’t settle, and that’s all anyone needs to know.” I guess the question is; how well can you know yourself while living solely in the light? How could I possibly know what I love so passionately about myself (candor, bravery), without knowing what I hate about myself (hyper criticism that consumes me and suffocates my relationships, fear, a flighty mind, insubordinate disorganization)? We need to know ourselves so that when it comes down to it, we live your truth.

The Ultimate Judas

It’s been a week since adulthood punched me in the nose with its brass knuckles and kemosabe vibe. I mean, it really favored more Judas than ‘sabe, but that’s not the point. It had a sketchy, jaded kind of deep smoker’s whisper, as if to pull me into an alluring, 50% off sale at H&M that only I were made privy to. I was going through a list of fancy summer internships that I’m relying on acquiring in order to obtain further pasta this summer and rent money out in the sweltering, slow killer of your mother heat of Richmond. It all happened at once, like a trippy dream, like the cocaine trip episode of “Girls” (omg, another ultimate modern day Judas story, except Hannah was Judased twice, by her real friends). The first one read “Social media knowledge……. Bs, bs, bs.” It read like the end of my life. I gave myself a pep talk, I said, "You are an avid and proud member of the generation of narcissism, and if anyone can make up made up talents, skills, and individual specific trades (maybe frankincense or myrrh) at the drop of a hat, it is you young grasshopper.” So I allowed that to resonate. Then I moved onto the old “Whatever, Carrie Bradshaw couldn’t use anything but Microsoft Word and look at her now” mantra. It was all gonna be okay. I was channeling Hillary’s greatness and Beyoncé’s most fierce moments of bravery. I moved to the next to find the same predicament. The colors began to run together. It was a color pukefest. It felt like I, who rarely ran for any purpose, was in that facebook profile pic worthy, wildly popular Color Run thing.

All I could see was the repeated re-iteration of another pile of stress on top of the already crushing weight of a roommate that put away my dish .8ths of a second after I used it, immediately scolding my irresponsible ways, the expected debt coming upon me in a wave like that one in “Blue Crush” that knocked Kate Bosworth’s head into the rock, the piles of clothes laying on the floor and my bed that explained my inability to purchase groceries this week, the pile of applications picked up in my search for a new part time anything, anywhere. All in all, I was maybe a little on edge. I mean there was also that whole 15 credits to be trying to pass and two campus papers to be writing for every week (resume building), but hey!, I mean, there is always that extra time I had been keeping in the back of my “yeah, sleep is for delinquents” pants pocket to revamp my blog, start using it every day, and create a twitter to become active with, because after all, all the generation of narcissism is really good for is social media. And that was it. That was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me economy of 2013.

So here I am. This blog won’t be about me feelin’ my muse, some political release, funny banter, or for the entertainment of facebook friends. Oh no! No. No. No. This blog is about achieving a job in a job world that doesn’t need me. It’s about proving with three months left that I am SUCH a blog, social media whiz that YOU (whoever you are) can’t let me go. I’m going to be the Kimmy in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” I mean, I’ll probably end up the Jules. Here I am, giving it the old college try. I say commendable to say the very least, but Who’s asking me?

Only if they Love the You that is most Important to You

It gets harder with every year, sophomore, junior, then senior. One of the few aspects of college life that is more difficult to witness yet more beautiful with every year. The freshmen pour in. Eclectic fashion, astounding energy, the hope of millions channeled inside each individual one, the kind of vigor that shines like the rising sun in mid-July, stunning expectation, anxious physicality, anticipation long forgotten and the kind of fear that you only recognize at the beginning of each Fall semester. It’s that fear that reminds you of how dull your light now is in comparison to back when you were them.  The kind of fear that is just waiting to be opened up and operated on, changed, re-arranged, unlearned, created and re-created. The kind of fear you miss knowing as your own intimate confidant. You allow envy to linger and make your best effort at rekindling memories from your distant observations. You delight in a vulnerability that seems to be jumping up and down, dancing and banging on the doors of downtown Richmond, on the edge of its seat waiting for the call of the beginning of the rest of their lives. To know the unknown and to finally be known for what it is. College! The place they escaped to under the presumption that this was the place to bring yourself, be yourself, become yourself. The place where they will acquire ambitions, beliefs, experiences, friends and knowledge that will surreptitiously give the finger to everything at home they came to escape. The immersion of varying opinions and things known to them as taboo will come to create a rebellious persona that can only be enacted through the bonded result of this pledge made with their fellow freshman to be new and curious. They travel in packs and can be identified as coy, brave in a quest to prove memorable, obnoxious, or important. They are innocent seekers.  

Many come with significant others. You look on with concern and a thriving joy inside yourself than no amount of cynicism could thieve from you. Together they possess a rare fragility displaying that passionate, all consuming, out of their minds, first time, I would eat my peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich off the bottom of his/her shoe 3 days walked on and savor it, run to the ends of the earth to make my point to finally give in just to feel all of it at one time, forgo all plans, hopes, dreams in the name of Jimmy/Susie kind of enamored devotion. They were dropped off by mom and dad and overnight became the people they are becoming. Naturally they conclude to make it eternal. Within this pact they promise to be together forever. They sit on the quad/Monroe Park on a towel and share Pizza Hut and Shafer soft serve.

You leave for your 9 a.m. wearing smeared makeup reeking of jaded annoyance that sums up all thoughts of your disappointment in Honey Boo Boo’s repugnant idea of spaghetti and your high electricity bill. You walk past the dorms; 8:50 a.m. He sits outside of Brandt and waits for her with big gleaming eyes begging for approval with Starbucks in hand and endearment in his heart. You would bet a million bucks that this kid would sit there for another 30 minutes waiting, that he would pick up the three morsels of the muffin she drops in class and dust them off if she asked him to. You want to tell them to suck it dry. You just want to walk right up to these two people that you technically know nothing about and say, hey guys, please, give it all you got because even when it does come down you just have to be able to say you gave it all you had. To be able to say that you wanted the last sip of milkshake and you let them have it at the prayer of a dirty, unexpected make out session mid-way through statistics in the window of her 15 minutes between classes up against that restaurant window filled with twenty on-lookers in the Fan with reckless abandonment.

You concede to yourself that they fight as if the fire of 6,000 suns is upon them and they’ve been told that the last mouth releasing a word is the one that won’t burn to death. Slowly but surely you observe their internal struggle for freedom come to challenge what they once knew as the most unbreakable alliance mankind had ever seen. You watch expectantly as they give the most dramatic, wholehearted portrayal of a country trying to overrule their struggle, oppression, and progression with the Constitution of their original pact. They remain products of the America today that knows nothing of a Constitution, little of who they are at age 17 and even less about commitment. Months later, they disappear. You know they still come to class but they aren’t together and he certainly isn’t waiting in the morning outside of Brandt. It is as if their presence ceases to take up space. Occasionally you glance around to find them, respectably singular beings. They are always dressed quite differently than you remember, a different demeanor, maybe hair color, way about who they now are.

Love like that is something that makes an appearance with the spectacular likelihood of a perfectly spaced, free parking spot in downtown Richmond or guessing the exact weight of your Sweet Frog cup. It transcends into other’s lives and tells the world that reveries are not to be martyred but lived. It shows us all that in placing your being within another you deceive your worth and knowingly ingrain in your destiny a counterfeit map. Love like that impels others to believe in the union of two people when they don’t believe in themselves. It knows no free man and vacuums up the aimlessly roaming dreamers to make captive. It is cruel and kind, wishful and selfish, silly and original in a world where the word in its intended form has become extinct. We know it to be fleeting and relentless with the fury of a breaching stage 4 hurricane. Love like this gives birth to a hate stronger than we have or will ever know. You can only hate as much as you have ever loved. This piece of life's pie is injected with an expiration date proceeding with purpose and a poison that’ll keep you down and out for much longer than a few days. Whilst wading in the loathing of the one you once called yours, evolution’s light creeps into your window sill. The light gives growth to the hate so thoroughly harvested sprouting maturity. The mind becomes entwined with the rest of humanity’s. We begin a lifelong courtship with those around us. Our imaginations are bigger and broader, but not with creativity, but realizations of pain so many carry. Empathy overwhelms us.

One can find love without ever having known this specific flavor of it. Most don’t but all things are possible. We give ourselves over into another’s identity hoping theirs be strong enough to allot meaning to ours. One of two ways it ends. Either so weak both break or one so strong that it overcomes the other through consumption in pursuit of addiction to the power. In this lesson, we learn that real love is not a tug of war between wills but a generous offering, equal efforts volunteered toward succumbing, subduing, or extending your will to meet your counterpart.

What if I said that romance is finding that person that loves the you that you love the most. Well I would sort of be channeling the sentiments of Carrie Bradshaw at the end of the Paris episode. That one is my fave. But think about it, really. There’s something about the thought of that… something fresh, something predestined to it, something that makes your arm hair stand up. It takes your mind down that back road you grew up riding in your best friend’s PT Loser (Cruiser) for forever and forever. It broadens your perception of the world around you and pulls out a beckoning, earnest, happiness from your very core, or maybe stark madness. I love the word madness. No matter where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing, you often think, no one sees this one thing that’s inside me just waiting to be woken up. Why?

What if someone did and they fell in love with that…. That would be everything, change everything. We spend our whole lives walking down this path. It’s all our own. Many of us end up taking side, alternative, sporadically chosen routes. We culminate experience and good faith to truck on. The gps of our subconscious is screaming and warning us in that British accent (no, that’s just mine) and from time to time we feel a little tug from it. We become quiet enough internally to hear the buzzing for a moment. It jolts us, get those endorphins going and we get off a little bit on the thrill of taking the alternative route for the adventure. We do this in order to explore, pick up and drop off the varied remnants of ourselves that we never knew pieced together our identity. Eventually we come to our own peace, our consensus. We hit a pinnacle; a death, abandonment, lost friendship, breakup, a fork in the road and we make a decisive decision. The acceptance of the I am “insert random culmination of unique traits” and I will not waver. I will seek and open my mind to newfound knowledge, traits, and changes but this is the base of who I was built to be.

Are you the silliest, quirkiest, most optimistic person you know? Are you one of the most loving, or generous, or unique people you know? Is doing little anonymous acts of kindness your thing? Does no one give a compliment quite like you? If one of your friends wanted to dare someone to jump up on the cafeteria table and announce in front of 200 students that it was them who pulled the fire alarm twice that morning, Would you be the one most likely to do it? Are you ridiculously convicted in your belief that the world would be a way better place if we all cuddled with a fluffy Persian or stray behind the back of KFC every single day? Do you ask the best questions ever? Are you secretly brilliant but everyone takes you for Kim Kardashian? Are you a hidden comedian that no one will accept in response to your immaculate GPA and endless leadership titles?

You’ll know it when you see it. When you find those special details about yourself that you hold most beloved, demand that it be loved with shameless, brazen courage and exuberance. It sounds simple enough in theory. Why even talk about it? I all too often see young couples today try to subdue or control some part of their significant other. Don’t be subdued, but renewed to whoever you are. The right person will love about you what most people don’t appreciate or perceive in the shallow confines of society. That doesn’t mean that tomorrow I should wake up and decide that I am the biggest genius man will ever know and I must win all arguments. These characteristics must define love and be easily lendable to the harmony of a union. Who you are isn’t a choice but a state. Before you can find your person, I think, you have to know yourself. Once you know yourself you have to prioritize your character. The person that falls effortlessly in love with it just as much as everything else that comes with you….. that’s your person.  

Questions Acknowledge Humanity

Today I write to you about myself. Keep in mind, regardless of my last two blog postings I will never be someone who plans on telling you how to think or live your life. Telling you about mine hopefully rings a better tune in your ear and can still accomplish positive resonation.

I just had lunch with a really good friend following one of our classes together. In this class I asked our professor a question about our classroom. This was not a question that this teacher took lightly because he assumed that in regards to my question I wasn’t taking the environment or his authority seriously. Rest assured that although I am remaining exceptionally vague out of respect for these people and this encounter I did not ask what one would refer to as a “dumb question.” To echo this sentiment I do have great respect for said professor and didn’t quite understand his push back at me, especially so blatant and in front of the rest of the class. Another professor asked me to stay after to discuss the issue. This teacher apologized for some of the other teacher’s response to me then asked me to question the reasoning behind my inquisitiveness.

Following this altercation my friend informed me that the question I had asked was on her and other’s minds as well. We began to discuss it. “That seems to be something that really bothers you,” she says, “When people in authority that are hungry for power aren’t willing to accept other’s views.” Apparently she can read me pretty well. She goes on to tell me that I am always asking questions. I am completely aware of this. This day in age people have a hard time understanding and accepting that about me. This is exceptionally difficult to get a grasp on. When I meet someone I want to immediately know them. I want to really know them. If the world was mine and all of the people like me the word “really” that I used in the previous sentence would not be necessary. To me, to know someone is to understand them. Without an account of one’s past, present, future wishes, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and opinions you are unable to understand people. My definition of knowing someone is the closest one can get to walking a day in their shoes.

Questions that I deem completely appropriate on a first encounter basis are questions that scare people. I notice that when I meet people I lean into them and take a genuine, intimate (again, a word I don’t feel like I need to use but this world belongs to tons of people that aren’t like me) interest in who they are, where they come from and why they are the way they are. I observe many, if not 90 percent of these people curl into themselves, become anxiety ridden and look for the nearest exit. Sometimes I jokingly state that I am allergic to small talk. In fact, there is nothing joking to this statement. A huge part of this is webbed into my making. Having become a part of my persona I have accepted it as an aspect of my nature that I have only found myself unsuccessful at taming.

                I remember feeling stifled as a child. There were things I wanted to know and felt keen on asking that other children could not answer nor wished to know. There were so many times that I would ask someone a question and my mother would tell me that it wasn’t appropriate. I remember thinking, what is going on? I love answering questions. I love when people ask me my opinion or what has gone on in my past or why I do or say or think things. I love it when people really want to know me. Why do they act as if I only wish to antagonize them? I only wish to understand these people and treat them with such knowledge in mind. As a child I knew that people did things in response to their life. People did bad things not because they were bad but because something awful had happened to them or they were left out or without a parent figure in their life.

                I wish to know people because I wish more than anything, to know the world. I wish to know other’s opinions and beliefs not because I am looking to challenge them but in my search to know humanity. I come from Wytheville Virginia. The diversity offered me throughout my formative years was few and far between. I wish to not taste but binge and gorge myself on helpings of all kinds of people of the world. I feel the need to know other’s views so that I can learn and entertain them myself.  This is not to say that I won’t challenge other’s thoughts or beliefs, but to say that I only hope to extend my knowledge. I also yearn to be challenged in my views. My greatest hope is to be accepted in my difference of opinion while simultaneously being questioned.

                My friend Sarah goes onto tell me, “I think that your questions come from a place of genuine curiosity but it intimidates people.” I’ve heard this many times in my life. Apparently I am intimidating. “You just bring so much out in people in conversation and that scares some people,” she says. My only response to this is that people should know who they are and own who they are. There is never ANYTHING to be ashamed of from your past…. That’s why they call it your past. It only created a new 2.0 version of you that is more capable, resilient and evolved. Others may not see it that way, but I do.

                I am an English major. Here’s the thing about English majors; our professors expect us to teach the class. We come into class, sit down, the professor briefs us on key points of the reading and what was happening in the world during the time period the literature was written, then he/she asks the most open ended question you think you may have ever heard in your life. The next day, it never fails; you realize that yesterday you were wrong. A few intellectual arms go up; they briefly and articulately state their claim and opinion and the professor looks at them with wonderment and goes into a spiel on why said student was correct. I have been lucky enough to know the singular opinions of two of my English professors. Les Harrison hails from Texas A & M via Miami University (the UVA of Ohio), where he’s from and he may as well have an opinion on angular versus linear plaid. This is his charm and the reasoning behind every English student’s love or hate reaction to the mention of his name. Nick Sharp is the most seasoned English professor at VCU and his passionate thoughts begin with Shakespeare and end with stories of “Back in the day…”

Open minded meets open ended. These are the people I have come to know and love in authority since leaving home to become an adult. They don’t hope to or even consider imposing anything but the notion that you can learn something from reading literature. They will inform us of the history, personal points to know, hand us the baton, maybe shoot that gun one more time, hop in the stands and yell for us to run! This is where respect is established. To be a free thinker is to be able to ask questions, to be able to share opinions and accept opinions.

I am fully aware that if I would back down, even slightly from my belief in truly knowing others, or, if I were to tone down my nature a few notches that life could possibly be easier for me. By easier I mean a more constant, breezy, ebb and flow of circulating nods, yeses, bits and pieces of appeasing, vapid compliments to outfits and tons of “friends.” But I don’t want a quantity of “friends” to do lunch with at Chick-fil-A. Don’t get me wrong, there are days that I can talk Mila and Ashton all day. However this type of conversation needs to be limited to a half of the circumference of a fully rounded conversation as oppose to the entirety of it. I want my 5 to 10 sincere, soul seeking, kindred spirited, down to earth, talk about anything and everything all the time no matter how long it takes, friends. I don’t want to be “liked.” I want to be loved, or unfortunately, hated for what people are immediately told of me from me. This week in a class we were reading Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”… don’t be afraid. If you haven’t read it, it’s good stuff. Anyway, my favorite line is “Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.” A base man, I come to find is a bad, scummy person. In Blake’s time this was a gypsy or a posing priest or a deviant criminal who felt compelled to haggle the innocent. Moral of the story; if you make known your convictions initially, they will not be questioned.

You shouldn’t be afraid of yourself or what that means. You shouldn’t be afraid of others or what they bring to the table. The quicker you are to embrace another, the quicker they are to embrace you. Questions bring life to life. Allowing others to know you should never be intimidating, but exciting. If they are hearing it from you then it must be the most true source and content offered. Why not find excitement in this kind of opportunity? Today is a day when you should refuse to allow the world to tell you or anyone else who you are. So "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." And you can’t go wrong with Dr. Seuss.