Contradictions
I contradict myself more than I like to admit. I like to pretend that I'm very simple and put together and that I make sense. Or I like to pretend that I'm so complicated that its hard to figure out my reaction to anything. But either way, I like to be solid, stalwart, I don't like being changeable. I guess I like being stubborn.
I've been told I'm stubborn since before I can remember. Certainly since before I could walk. People don't say it like its a good thing, but I guess when its the trait of your personality most often pointed out to you, you have to learn to see it in a positive light. How depressing to have your main trait be an unfortunate one.
So I see my stubbornness as determination, willpower, strength of character--no one would ever accuse me of having a weak character.
I am sitting in my room and not much is happening. I have a book to read, a whole book, but I'll do that tomorrow. When I start books, I finish them, and I have more time to devote to literary pursuits manana than I do today. Its after nine anyway, and I still need to practice the guitar, if I will. I probably won't. I should go see people and be social. The trick to having friends is making friends. I've never been very good at that. I don't like imposing on people. What if they're studying?
Recently, I've been getting the urges to document my life through film. Well, not film but digital pixel representations. Photos, you know, but everything is digital now.
But I can't procrastinate, so I make myself finish all of my homework first, and by then its dark, and I don't think my pictures will turn out. I'll take one from my window today, and see. I love looking out my window. I overlook a mostly always empty street and parking lot and a big building with eerie blue lights that shine through my curtains and blinds even when they're shut, to pierce my eyes and cast a coloured hazy over all of my dreams. I dream in azure.
The dreams have been weird recently. My dreams. I don't remember them most of the time. I do when I just wake up, but then routine kicks in and I push them out of my mind so that I can fill it with toothbrushing and colour-coordinating and other important things. I have pictures though, just a few images that still rattle around in my brain for days. A few nights ago, I was at war. I was leading an arm, but there was a much bigger army coming toward me, and as I walked forward (I didn't march, and I didn't run, I just walked, because there was no point) I knew I was going to die. And I looked over my shoulder to see the faces of those around me who I was leading to die, allowing to die with me. I wanted to tell them to leave, but I couldn't. My voice latched on to my throat, its nails piercing my vocal chords, and I couldn't speak, cowardice taking over.
I don't think of myself as a coward. I'm not afraid of most anything, certainly not death, at least in the abstract not death. Not that I want to die, far from it, but I feel that death isn't such a bad thing, to me at least, its not the end. But I am afraid of the death of those around me. And failure, but that's neither here nor there. We'll get to that later. I do fear people around me dying, people of I love, and even people I don't know. I fear watching them suffer and not being able to do anything about it.
So when I was walking, as if destined, my feet not listening to my brain, my voice following in mutiny, I was in deep pain, not because I was going to die, but because so was everyone else. Now when I look in the faces of the people around me, I can remember them drawn in fear but sharp with determination, as they followed me. I remember them as they looked as they stared down death. Its not a face that you forget.
I miss the days of dreams without consequences.
[karma: 0 (+/-)]
Katie on 04.08 at 09:32