Journal

I just lost a whole bunch of Christian friends.... it's so hard, feeling alone again, feeling like pieces are being ripped from my body, while I don't have that many pieces to give in the first place.

Owell, fuck them.

Mom was accosted by seven teenaged boys tonight, it was scary, she doesn't deserve to feel scared at the hands of someone else. I want her to feel alright, to feel safe.

She feels neither of those things, and I'm so sorry for that.

I'm sorry I can't be there all the time mom, I need to live my own life! I can't follow you around, protecting you! I wish I could, I wish I had the time to be able to do that.... but I can't. You need to defend yourself, and be smart about where you go.

We're going to be moving soon, mommy, believe me. As soon as I get the loan from school, we're outta here, just wait, you'll see. It'll be safe, and quiet, clean, and nice.

Just wait, it will all be worth it. This shitty apartment will then be a thing of the past, and all you'll have to worry about is what music to listen to to provide some background noise.

I love you, and I don't want to see you hurt. 

My sister is moving out of her apartment today, and I've volunteered myself to help, which was all fine and good until this morning, when I woke up at 4:30 and realized that there was NOTHING left to do here.

Let me explain her current living situation. She's living in a building that my dad, two uncles, grandfather, best friend, and aquantaince have lived in for nearly fifteen years, I remember coming over here as a kid and having the best weekends with my family, going on food runs and shopping trips for the times I've cleaned their apartments (for pay, of course) the times that we'd have sleepover nights to watch pay-per-view wrestling and everyone would be over, making spaghetti or ordering from Domino's. The times when my uncles would sell to us their N64's or PS1's, only to buy them back later on when they needed the money, and then back and forth for YEARS. Oh yeah, my cousin Nancy lived here as well... When I was being molested, Paul would come here (or rather, upstairs to the other apartment) and visit with his relatives before bringing me to his place... Or the Christmases I've had here, with my sister making lasagna for lunch (because that's the only thing she can make) And pancakes with chocolate chips for breakfast. Or the time when our old friend, Bob, who at the time was a hyper wheelchair bound guy who always loved to play Goldeneye with us, and we'd have tournaments to see who can win the most, who can have the bloodiest finishes, and who can figure out how to successfully use a certain mine. Or the summer afternoons that I'd come here after summercamp, my uncle in his bedroom sleeping while someone else (I can't remember WHO...) took the other room, and I'd be in the living room (In between the two rooms) and look out through the horizontally sliding window and look at the baking trees and not hear a single car for quite a while. Just listening to the birds, feeling the warm breeze, before I would go back to the game I was playing or the movie I was watching. Not too much responsibility, just the right amount of good memories.

Or the time that my dad would have barbecues on the back deck, when he was living in his own apartment, how he'd make sure that he had the key to get back in, since the door to the deck only opens one way... or the car rides my sister and I would take with dad to get some furniture for her apartment, and how I DIDNT FEEL ALONE. I ALWAYS had people around me, I ALWAYS felt that they would be there forever, and I was perfectly content to just BE with them... because that is where I felt safe.

When I was last here several years ago, this place was full of life. My family would be over all the time, bringing food and the newest game over, or just simply coming by to visit... and I remember it was so much FUN... I would call up from downstairs using the keypad to dial the apartment, and the people would either buzz me in or come down the elevator to let me in. And the times when we'd listen to music while cleaning, or the times when we'd go on bus trips to the mall- together. We were a family then, we were alive, and we could depend on one another to get the job done.

Not anymore. The apartment upstairs has been rented out to someone else for about two years now- THAT apartment had been in my life for about fourteen years or so. That was where I was living when I first got out of Westboro, when I was living with dad, and that is also where my grandfather died. Nope, I'm downstairs at the current moment, where my sister once lived with a roommate (His name is Bill) But that roommate moved out about three weeks ago, and the apartment that was once so FULL of stuff is now empty, the apartment that was once so noisy with life is now quiet with the gentle hum of the box fan which is circulating the air. The floors which once held up two entertainment centers, a big ass Christmas tree, and people, with a rug that you literally sunk in to, now holds boxes and cat vomit, carpet beatles, wine stains, and is actually pretty solid because it hasn't been cleaned or maintained at ALL for ten years.

The elevator I used to ride so often to bring trash down from the fourth floor to the dumpster, the elevator that I could predict to the milisecond when it would beep, the elevator I used to look up through the fan to see the shaft grow shorter or longer... the elevator that my dad and I used to ride in whenever we came home, or the elevator my uncle and I used to ride in whenever we were about to go some where, the hallways which I used to know so well as well, the darkened lights, the various smells, noises coming from the various residences... the air conditioners which haven't worked that well in about five or six years, the bathrooms with their thunderous toilets that could flush a cat if you tried... the bathtubs that have jacuuzi jets (Oh, funny story about that, when I was about ten or so, my uncle wanted me to try out the jacuuzi, so I'm in it, and he put in bubble bath- well, as you can imagine it foamed up really well. It foamed up SO well that the entire bathroom got an efficient cleaning job, the suds ran nearly to the door. It was so funny, I'm running out of the bathroom butt naked screaming that I was going to get electrocuted because the suds were about to touch the electrical socket. Ahhhh, fun times)

Or the time I jammed the trash chute with a mop (I didn't know I wasn't supposed to put it in there!) And the trash actually backed up all the way to the fourth floor (LOL) Or the all the times when my uncle would make hamburgers and (this is gross) KEEP THE GREASE TO MAKE FRENCH FRIES WITH. Yes, flies would fly in there and die, and he'd STILL use it! HA! Luckily I only had them once or twice, but I would NEVER want to keep having them.

I remember the Saturday mornings when I'd wake up at the old apartment, the one I moved out of eleven years ago, and walk along the train tracks to his house, never once seeing a car the entire way, feeling the cool breeze along my feet as I bounced merrily on the way.

This building has been a part of my life since I was six years old. And after today, it will never be a part of my life again. It will disappear into the past just like so many people who were once integral to my life, with nothing to look at it with other than good memories of good times. Of times more innocent, of times when I didn't know what depression was, of times when my biggest worry was a school oral report. There's nothing left of this place, and there's nothing left for me- and that's a sad thing- but it's time to move on. I will continue to walk by it and under it (It's a building on stilts) every month until I go to Umass, but I will never again feel the metal security door with its shitty glass windows, I will never again fetch mail for anyone, I will never again after today hear the buzz of the elevator that I knew so well... after today I will be moving on, and it is indeed a very weird feeling to have.

Anyway, enough of my nostalgia, I wanted to give an update.

It's still the summer.

End of update. 

There are so many times when I wake up in the morning feeling completely hopeless, that I've somehow screwed up my life so badly, so... completely that there is no way out of the past. That, somehow, when I was a kid I was evil and so rotten that it's no wonder my family has problems with liking me. My sister just came over and said "I go to mount Holyoke, I'm smart" I may not have a chance of getting into a school like Mount Holyoke, so for a little while I felt completely stupid. But then I realized, that somehow over the last twenty one years, despite all the pain I've felt, I MUST have done something right. After all, I'm not the horrible person I thought I once was. That the past no longer exists. Here's an excerpt from the Sound of Music.

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somwhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth

Nothing comes from nothing

Nothing ever could...

So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Maybe I'm not the scholar my sister is, but she isn't me, and I need to learn to accept that. She will accomplish things that I will never be able to accomplish, and I need to be able to rest well at night knowing that. Knowing that, just because she's able to go to a world class school where princesses and queen's send their daughters doesn't mean that I'm not just as smart, in my own field of study. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a mathematician.  I'm a writer, I'm someone who loves to read. Someone who loves the smell of books, the feel of a movie, the sound of the music that I can rest to, I love the work that's put in to things that people consider to be stupid ("Watching TV only makes your brain turn to mush" For instance) I love the media arts, I love writing. That's something my sister cannot say. (And instead of having what she has, I'll be attending a school where Bill Cosby, Bill Pullman, and Steve Corwin went to school- Umass Amherst) If I'm not able to go to where I want to go.

"So somewhere in my youth... or childhood....

I must have done something.... good...."