A revelation. Of sorts.

Hi! It’s been a while, but hey, it’s my blog; I can neglect it as much as I please.

Things have been… pretty good overall. Wow, it feels so weird to say that, I’m so used to feeling whiny and sad. There have been a lot of revelations: the “It’s ok to be who you are. Duh.” revelation, the “Do things for yourself” revelation, and the “Maybe you should stop scaring boys away” revelation, to name but a few. But the one I want ottalk about today, is the “Why the f*ck do people say I act white just because I listen to rock?” revelation. Well, it’s not really a revelation, more an observation.

Still, it pisses me off.

When I was a kid, I loved teenpop. It was a good era for teen pop, we got pre-crazy Britney, N*Sync, The Backstreet Boys… Aaaah, those were the days. Insipid lyrics? Check. Matching outfits? Check. Killer dance moves? CHECK. Good times all around.

As I got older though, I didn’t go for Hip Hop and RnB like most of my black friends. I very slowly started listening to more alternative stuff, namely The Strokes, Maroon 5 (I think it’s pop, but people seem to classify it as alt. rock, so whatever), Coldplay. I just became really disenchanted by other music. Mostly, I think it was their music videos. Seriously. Can you say “objectification of women”? Because, have you seen those vidoes? It’s like lite-porn. In some cases, it’s like ACTUAL-porn. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see some woman gyrating across my screen in hotpants and matching bra. I’m not going to rant about it, because god knows that there are enough of those floationg around. The point is, I wasn’t having it. I preferred rock and alt. rock videos because they seemed to have (a little more) substance. Well, at least they had less scantily clad women. (I must note, however, that half naked women seem to be spreading into all genres. Sigh.)

I don’t know, the rap industry seems to be made up of a whole lot of smack talk, trashing woman and sexism. Please, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. It just seems that way to me.

Luckily though, I found music that spoke to me. Right now, I guess I would list my favorite bands as the following: My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco, Death Cab For Cutie, Gym Class Heroes, Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship, The Hush Sound and The Academy Is… And that’s just the mainstream stuff (there’s a whole other list involving classical music and jazz, even the ocassional folk tune), but I don’t have hours to sit here and make a list. Another time, perhaps.

The point is, my music is pretty different from most black people that I know. I suspect that things would be different for me if I lived somewhere else, but Southern Africa is still pretty… well, I guess racially-turbulent is a good way to phrase it. People have this misconception that music is divided into different categories, and if you’re a certain colour, you fall into a certain category. Unfortunately, I seem to have fallen headfirstinto the “white” category. And really, that doesn’t bother me. It seems to bother a lot of other people though. Since I don’t like 90% of our local music, I have been labelled as “unpatriotic” and “a sellout”. Hold up people. I never said that it wasn’t GOOD music, or even that you shouldn’t listen to it. All I said was I didn’t like it. Sheesh.

The question I get asked the most is some variation of “you know you’re like a white person, right?”. No. I wasn’t aware of that. I thought that I was just a person who liked more rock that Hip Hop. I guess I was wrong. People tend not to take me seriously. They think that I’m pretending to be someone that I’m not, or that I think that white people are better than black people. But all I know, is that rock speaks to me more than Hip Hop. 50 Cent never gave me hope, Gerard Way did. And if people don’t get that, it’s cool. But don’t you dare judge me becasue I’m notjust like you. (Hey! I found my revelation! I shall call it the “People who think like this are pretty dumb” revelation. I think it’s catchy.)

 

Will you, won’t you, be the one I’ll always know…

Sigh. This is turning into a very whiny blog. Well, maybe whiny isn’t the best word. I think that I only write here when I’m sad. Or at least, I don’t write here when I’m deliriously happy.

I was really happy. Seriously, 24 hours ago I wasn’t sinking back into the depression. Sometimes I just feel like I can’t handle it. “It” being life. I don’t know how to make my dreams come true. A friend of mine wrote that somewhere, and I actually stopped breathing when I read it, because. Well, because I agree. Well, the first problem is that I don’t know what my dreams are.

“Place all your bets

And watch me lose

The life that I’ve got

But never use”

Those are lyrics from “Out Through The Curtain” by The Hush Sound (a truly amazing band) which sum things up pretty neatly. I don’t use my life. A lot of us don’t, I think. Weird to know where to start though. You’d think that living is something that would come easily to me by now. Almost 2 decades and I still can’t do it? *laughs*

All this talk makes me want to do something bad. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I went/am going through this self harm thing. And people rarely understand it, so I won’t try and explain. The point is, that when I feel mired down and stuck like this, the desire to cut becomes very strong. I start thinking: I could totally handle it. I could stop whenever I wanted. It’s totally not a big deal.But of course it’s a big fucking deal. What the hell, how is carving into your body not a big deal. Gah. Sometimes, I just get tired. Recently (and this kind of freaks me out) I get these images of what it would look like if I killed myself. It’s not like I want to, it’s just. I sort of plan it out in my head. It’s twisted.

Feeling like this was easier when I was at school. Here, at home, I feel like I can’t lose my shit. Everyone’s watching and I have to be on my best behaviour. Sometimes, I want to fall apart in front of them, just so that they know that it’s serious. It’s not me being a drama queen.

PS- if someone wants to make comments along the lines of “stop being so emo and whiny”, just don’t. Seriously, don’t bother. Nothing you can say could make me feel worse than the things that are already in my head.

 

Meaningless drivel…

Ok, (I’ve noticed that I start a lot of posts with “Ok”, my English teacher would flay me alive for that!). So it’s been a very weird morning. Just to let you know, this is likely to be rant-y and laced with just a hint of self-pity. And maybe some triggering content. But anyway.

I wrote my Accounting exam yesterday, and it was actually alright. I’m pretty sure I passed it, so that’s a load of my shoulders. So I was all amped to study last nigh and I just… got into bed and didn’t get out until now, which is about 12pm. Yes, I slept for about 15 hours. The feeling I had isn’t so strong now, but I just felt so lethargic and everything was pointless.

Why is this such a bad thing?

Because this is how I felt when I was a little suicidal a while ago. This was the whole reason that I started going to therapy. Incidentally, I skipped therapy this morning due to feeling like a useless lump. ANd that’s made me feel like a useless lump. I kept waking up, and I would actually get up with the intention of doing something… then end up in bed again.

But for the past couple of hours, it’s been getting worse, what with me thinking about all the ways I could kill myself without leaving my room. It was weird. Right now, I’m kind of freaked about it, but at the time, it felt perfectly normal to think like that. And I had all these images of blood everywhere, and how I would look when the found me… It was dark. And, well, not that it seemed like a god idea, but it seemed like a good back-up plan. I feel stupid. I shouldn’t be thinking like this, should I? Why can’t I just grow up and face my demons like a normal person? Gah. Sometimes, I think it would be sooooo much easier if I was still 5 years old, and my biggest concern was the type of juice Mom had given me that day.

So, I’m sinking back into my hole of depression. It sucks. I have to study, so…. well, those two things actually have nothing to do with each other, except for the fact that they are occuring at the same time. Sorry if you read this, seriously, I’m not ususally this pathetic.

 

“Just one more.”

That seems to be my motto these days. Just one more hour of sleep, just one more episode of Gossip Girl (can you blame me though?), just one more piece of chocolate… It concerns me though. I have four more exams and I haven’t really been preparing for them. Why am I blogging about it instead of studying? Because I am the QUEEN OF PROCRASTINATION! (Yes, the title comes with Caps Lock.)

I just know that this is going to end with me frantically staying up all night to finish some random exam paper that won’t help me at all in the exam, or perhaps a nice nervous breakdown sometime soon. The funny thing is that I feel really motivated and ready to study… as long as I don’t actually have to study. Funny huh?

I don’t want exam week to be a horrible period, I want to sit back at the end of this and not feel like I’m about to die of exhaustion. Is that so much to ask?

Alright. I can do this. I can totally do this. No problem. Ok. Yes. (Do I sound convinced yet?)

 

“I’m still here…”

“But it hasn’t been easy

I’m sure that you had your reasons

I’m scared of all this emotion

For years I’ve been holding it down.”

-james Morrisson

Does  anyone know that song? I swer, I get chills when I listen to it, it seems to sum up everything I wantto say! Basically, I’m scared to start living. Wait, that sounds silly. Let me rather say that I don’t know where to start. In the past year and a half, I’ve had to start taking responsiblity for the course of my own life. WHen I was at home, I could kind of leave it up to my parents to make all the big decisions. But now, I have to do it. And it’s scary. Every decision you make is going to have an impact on who you are and what will happen to you.

For a control-freak like me, th worst part is that I can’t be in control of everything. I realise now that I chose the safest possible options for my life. I’m studying acoounting (which basically guarantees ou a job and a crapload of money), I haven’t dated (because I don’t want to get hurt), I isolate myself from people (because I hate conflict and rejection)… Ugh. On paper (or screen!) my life seems so empty. I mean, yeah, it isn’t bad per se, it’s just… uneventful. I mean, I’m not even 20 yet, and here I am trying to plan out my entire life.

I need to be bold. I need to take a chance. Seriously, I’m driving myself crazy here. But honestly, i don’t know how to do it. Drop out of school and do something random? Get a job? My biggest fear is that those things are too drastic. Maybe I just need to do something different.

The funny things is, my mom is totally encouraging me to come home. Do I have the most awesome mother or what? Oh crap, I’m getting all emotional. Thinking about this always makes me cry. Mostly because I feel so bad that I’ve wasted so much time and money on this, and now…. I shudder to think what my dad is going to say. I’ve only told my mom, and she said dhe would tell him before I get home. He;s going to try convince me to stay. I have a feeling. He’ll be all like: “Don’t you think it would be better to just fib=nish and get your degree?” And I’ll agree. Just lke I always do.

Aaaaaaarghh! Thisis so frustrating. I honestly don’t know what to do. Everytime I think about this decsion, my whole body just tenses,and my mind is whirling like a dervish (I love that phrase! What te hell is a dervish anyway?) and I just push it to the back of my head. Not the best attitude to have when you’re trying to study for exams. It doesn’t help that I keep thinking “Why study? I’m dropping out anyway.” Yeah, try studying Microeconomics with that thought.

I need advice. The person that I most want advice from right now, is the guy I’ve been writing about. Because, not only am I crazy about him, he’s also a really close friend of mine. He’s the guy who followed his dreams, and I want to talk to him about it. Ok, fine, and I just want him to pay attention to me. I just want him, period. s my sudden onslaught of wanting partially driven by his recent relationship with (gasp) another woman? Maybe. But he was always kind of in my mind. I’ve known him for so long…. Ok. This is not going to turn into a post about him. I refuse. As much as I want to spend time writing down every reason why I like him, I have an exam to study for and a life-altering decision to make. Plus, I really have to wash my hair!

Peace out, and thanks for listening to my ranting… ;>