*screams*

So I've been trying to get onto my xanga for the past WEEK!  Jeez!  Well, my dad moved out and he reorganized the computers (he's taking one of them with him), and for some reason, some of the places just wouldn't let me in!  I couldn't even get to the front page of my xanga.  Argh, so frustrating.

But, believe me, I've been trying to post here for a while.  I've got some plans this evening, but I swear I'll respond to everyone's lovely comments by midnight Sunday.  And then update.  Trust me, I had planned to update last weekend, but life continues to bypass my plots and plans and constantly form its own.

With love and promises of returning shortly~

Vic

EDIT:

Forget the 'by midnight Sunday' deadline I posted.  Stuff's come up.  Will respond as soon as I have a free moment!  Happy Easter to you all!  <3

GRR!

I was going to comment on everyone's sites and update, but my friend John came over to hang out and now I don't have the time!  Ahhhhhh!  I have to go to work, but I SWEAR I'll update tomorrow and will comment on everyone's sites.  I miss you all and everything's getting better.  So don't comment on this yet, because I want to respond to everyone's comments from my previous post first.  I hope you don't mind.

Love to you all.

And -

Happy Birthday

Maria!!!!

I have to go to work in a couple of minutes, so I'll make this quick -

There's the possibility that I may get to go with my cousin to Tanzania this summer (Tanzania is a country in Africa, for all those who didn't know ).  She goes on missionary trips every couple of years, and since I'm interested in going into the Peace Corp., I may just go with her first this summer.  I'm so excited, even if the decision isn't definite yet.  We'd be helping needy children, and I've always loved to help a cause.  It really makes living now much more worthwhile, seeing as I've got something to look forward to. 

But that's the basics.  For right now, I hope you're all doing fantastically well and I miss you all! 

Hmm, tra la la.

So, before I comment on everyone else's sites (and apologize profusely), I'm just gonna give a quicky about how my life is going.

First, I'm so sorry again that it's been nearly a month.  Xanga...surprisingly enough...became a chore for me.  It's already a bit time consuming (perhaps I put too much effort into my posts?), but that never really bothered me.  And then life threw lemons in my face, and, well, this place just became too happy for me.  Is that such a strange thing to admit, because it sure sounds strange to me.  But it was just tough to really sit down and talk to people or help people when my own life wasn't/isn't so hot.  I felt like a liar, in some respects, trying to give advice that I myself chose to ignore.  It didn't really feel right pretending to be chipper when I was, in truth, in a constant Limbo of teeth-grinding and weak spirits. 

I also was afraid to tell anybody what was going on - not that I'm ashamed!  But my mum has a habit for snooping and I was afraid she'd read and find out I was telling other people about her business.

But the business is thus: my parents are getting a divorce.  And it may not sound like such a big thing to so many people (51% of all marriages in the US end in divorce), it was a big deal to me and my life.  My mother is severely unhappy and my dad is severely closed off.  I love my parents and I love my parents together, but damn, it is a very, very, very, very miserable place in this house.  There is this constant raincloud hovering over us.  Not to mention, my sisters have formed their own little bubbles of life and I've never felt so separated and alone in my entire life.  However, my feelings don't count, and that fact is being brushed aside.

I work five days a week and go to school, too.  Homework is time-consuming.  Work is time-consuming.  In fact, I'm thinking about getting a second job.  A job more my speed.  I could drop a couple days from Dixie Bones and just balance a schedule.  DB is great and all, but I'm not a waitress at heart and social activities suck the life out of me.  I'm a book person, really.  I want to be around books.  Or incense.  Or something with a less frantic aura. 

I'm also too single to be true.  Currently hate males, but that's alright, they've never been in much favor anyway.  It's their fault for being such pricks.  But not all males.  Just 9 out of 10. 

My creativity is drained and I feel like I'm letting the entire world down.  I feel especially pitiful.  Like my father, I hate pouring out my feelings and relying on others.  I don't want to be co-dependent.  I'm very shut down and I hate practically everyone right now.  (Not you guys, xanga doesn't count when I say that).  I was talking to Angelia and we discovered quite unfortunately that I don't think I'm special or worthy.  I never really thought about it before.  In fact, I don't think I ever cared.  But yeah.  So I have self issues to work through.  I also feel like I'm letting my friends down all the time.  We have writer's workshops and I can't ever bring anything, share anything, read anything, help with anything, or, well, anything!  I feel like I frustrate them.

I better be careful.  Writing this all down right now is opening up a floodgate.  I better stop while I still can, or my entire life will be in this post.  I'm already on my period, and that's a death letter in itself.

But, yes, so I suppose that's it.  That's this last month in a nutshell.  Wow...I can't believe it's been that long since I posted here.  It feels like it's been no longer than a week.  Just...wow.

Victoria feels like  today.

~*~*~

I

AM

ALIVE!

..................Damnit!

~*~*~

Was at work today.  You've gotta give me props for working the southern barbeque Sunday Buffet with the Super Bowl only hours away from starting.  Unfortunate thing was, there weren't as many tables as we had expected.  The managers were going on about how we were going to be slammed, but it was just moderate and steady the entire time.  Disappointed?  I think not.  I hate the buffet.  I loved it the first day...but now I loathe it with a fiery passion.

~*~*~

There's a cute guy at work.  Jacob.  But company rules are you can't date anyone else who works at Dixie Bones.  And he's got a girlfriend.  He's a totally decent, funny guy!  I'm hooked.  But, ah, must let go.  He really likes his girlfriend.  Like in a maybe-one-day-I'll-even-pop-the-question type of like.  Yeah, story of my life.

Do you know what else I hate?  I hate it when men call me pet names when their wives are right there.  Doll.  Honey.  Sweetheart.  I mean, it's okay, but when it comes with a wink, it's like, "Space...?  Anywhere, space...?"  There was this guy who was all over me the other night.  I have to admit, he was a looker.  But he also looked like he'd rolled around in a dumpster and then fought it.  He said we were kindred spirits because my nails were green and his were purple, but he already had a girl.  And then he left without a second glance.  How anti-climactic.

Fu...

~*~*~

Life is...currently stable.  No, well, it's not quite stable....it's like running a heart monitor on the bottom of the ocean floor.  If that makes any sense at all.  It's stable darkness.  Stable dirge.  Stable emptiness.  Current, steady, constant, eternal.  Like purgatory. 

~*~*~

Lady in black robes

Do not mourn that I should leave

Hear the birds give their lament

The wind sings lovely

Colored in white veil

I am your silhouette and figure

Your mirror image asleep

The widow cries demure

Grey is the fetid evening

The stars wink until they go blind

I am meant to live for years

The life you left behind

I have to apologize.  I said I'd keep up with everyone's xangas, but I failed miserably at that.  Life just got so...cluttered all of a sudden and the next thing I knew, I'd almost completely forgotten about this site.  I have school three days a week and work five days a week.  Friday, my day off, is basically completely dedicated to my studies.  I'm getting together with Christine and Mary this Friday, but it'll probably be the last one for a long while.  My work is a shark eating up all my free time.  I'm really getting sick of that place.

I don't want pressure.  I already feel suffocated enough.  One more favor, one more extra mile, and I'm likely to crack.  I can't make space for hanging out right now.  It breaks my heart, but it's true.

Gah, Baron pissed me off today.  I think he's just conning time out of me because he really wants to hang out.  I agreed to meet him at the mall today, not for very long, because I can't afford losing time.  Luckily, he didn't show up.  His alarm clock didn't go off.  He slept overtime.  Which is good, I guess, because he talks a lot and I'd never be able to get anything finished.  I mean, he's my friend, but I can't take this right now.  The reason he wanted me to meet up with him was absolutely ludicrous anyway, but I didn't tell him that.  I spent an hour at the mall with Christina instead.  We enjoyed ourselves.

I'm not going to break.  I'm stone.  I am frozen.  I am solid.  I am white walls.  I am a mountain.  I will not cry. 

There's more to it.  But it won't make sense now.  Maybe later.  Maybe, if this story ever finishes.

~*~*~

This is my assignment for Creative Writing.  My class has to read this and critique it.  I'm petrified.

The Learned

Good girls don’t cry.

They don’t cry, because they didn’t do anything wrong.  They behave themselves and don’t get punished.  They’re always happy.  They wear pretty pink dresses to church and have their mommies curl their hair and buckle their shiny, white shoes – shoes that never get scuff marks or dirt globs.  Good girls walk on sunshine, and sunshine doesn’t leave a stain.  They are always beautiful.

It’s only the bad girls who cry.  They’re the girls who are at fault.  They’re to blame.  And whatever happened to them to make them cry was something they deserved.  It’s how the world works. 

I don’t cry anymore.  I’m very happy.  I’m happy all the time.  I used to cry lots when I was younger.  But I’m eight-years-old now, and very well-behaved.  I say all the right things and do all my chores.  I play outside, even when it rains, so that I don’t get in the way.  I even get good grades in school and stay after all the time for lots of extra credit.  And if I ever think I’m going to cry, I look up, focus on my breathing, and relax.  I swallow it all down, like a pill.  I smile again.  I don’t cry.  I’m not a bad girl.

Today I haven’t gotten yelled at.  I’m outside, after a big rainfall.  It’s October, so it’s gotten kind of cold, and our backyard is covered in dead leaves, but I don’t mind.  I brought my Barbie outside with me.  She’s walking in the grass, on an adventure, and she’s been keeping her shoes very clean.  She walks around every muddy puddle and treats the bugs very nice.  I raised her well.  But as I’m talking to her, I start to smell smoke.  We both look through the kitchen window from where we are.  Mommy’s running over to the stove, pulling out something ugly as sin.  I think she burned dinner. 

Daddy must have smelled it, too, because I can hear banging from the other side of the house.  It’s getting closer to Mommy.  Barbie and I watch as he comes in the room.  He hits Mommy hard, but she doesn’t fall down.  I remember when she used to scream for him to stop, but now she just lets him beat her up.  He says a lot of bad words to her.  No, he roars a lot of bad words.  It’s like watching a movie, except the credits never roll.  Everything stays the same.  He points to the black mass on the counter, asks her how stupid can she be, and hits her again.  She falls down.

Daddy takes dinner and throws it on the floor.  I can’t see what happened to it, but the burning smell got stronger.  He walked out of the room.  I can’t see Mommy either, but she’s crying and I know she is.  She can’t help it.  She’s a bad girl.  She deserved it.

I look up, blink a lot, and calm myself down.  I almost did it, but I caught myself.  I almost wasn’t a good girl anymore. 

When everything got quiet and nothing moved, I looked at the Barbie in my hand.  She was smiling at me with her big, blue eyes.  I turned her over and stuck her head down in the puddle next to me.  When I picked her back up, her face was wet and her hair was spoiled.  She looked like she was crying. 

Barbie was a bad girl.