On what I should do next

Dear me, I'm still sad... I got insomnia last night. Again. I fucking hate being unable to sleep.

And you see, I was actually thinking... (¨*aaaaahhh* Oh, come on guys, I sometimes do think).

Upon turning the matter over and over in my small headie, I came to the conclusion I don't actually miss people at all. It just is that I don't have anything to do at all but scratch my itchy spots. And even that doesn't thrill me. So, I came to the conclusion, I must go back to college.

College in Mexico is not the same as in most English speaking countries. Here, when you finish high school, you choose what it is you want to be (civil engineer, accountant, home manager [yeah, that career really exists], etc.) and then go to college. Here we call it Universidad, which is not the same as University in English.

This choice has its problems: First, it is thrust upon you when you are 18, which is not precisely the smartest and clearest age to be; second, we don't get the necessary guidance at high-school; third, if you visit the Universidad in question you almost never get precise information about what you are going to be studying the next five years of you life.

Due to these flaws in the system, many of us do not choose wisely when deciding upon a career. In fact, most of us make a rushed decision on a career we know little about, and before we know it we find ourselves in the middle of fourth semester facing the fact that we don't like our choice at all. That (as I'm sure you have guessed by now) was my situation. I studied two years worth of English Literature in the best school for doing so in this country, and one day I decided it was not for me. So I dropped school and started working, to the huge disappointment of my family.

Now, I didn't exactly choose English Literature by myself. Truth is, when I finished high school I didn't have the slightest idea about what the heck I wanted to do with my life. I knew it, so I didn't want to go to college immediately after high-school. I wanted to work, I wanted to travel, I wanted to find myself. And to be even more honest, I didn't give much for my professional future back then; I was depressed, I didn't know myself, I didn't love myself, I wanted to deserve something and felt I deserved nothing.

I have always had this fierce need for independence. Since I can remember, I always wanted to feel worthy. At eighteen, I felt I was already too old for many of things, I felt I was losing time at school, I didn't want to depend on what my parents saw fit for me and start discovering it by myself.

I can't explain what I so desperately need to say. Wait.

My parents always had this great expectations for me. I was a bright kid, straight A's all through elementary school, honor roll student, etc. I knew I was smart. I didn't get good conduct grades because teachers always found me reading instead of working in class. I was the only kid who ever read something. I had no friends then either, but I didn't care because I had a great deal going on. There was always a good book to read, or maybe I'd find a caterpillar in the backyard, I'd put it in a jar and feed it until it'd turn into a butterfly. I took ballet classes. I was that sort of kid.

But even then there must have been something wrong, because when I started junior high I discovered boys and everything went to hell. The ballet, my grades, my honor roll spot, everything. My conduct grades where even poorer because, when I was not at class reading, I was making out with a boy. And not in that sweet, nice, holding hands way healthy pubes make out, but I'd be groping the boy in question's cock while he touched my (tiny) breasts. Yeah, I was like that at eleven.

I had the misfortune of attending a lower-class Catholic La Salle school. If you don't know them, you're lucky: they're the worst kind. Small-minded teachers whose only advice was that I should start praying so Satan would desert me. Small minded children by whom I was regarded as a whore, since I had made out with practically all of the boys and had sex with at least four of them. None of them my boyfriends. At least two of them had been boyfriends to two of my 'girlfriends', and all of them knew it. Rumor had it that I was also doing drugs (ohJesusMaryandChrist). [By the way, I was, but what of that?]

Back then I felt very bad about myself. I just couldn't understand myself. Did you ever see that Kevin Smith movie, Chasing Amy? There is a part where Holden, the self-righteous boyfriend, yells at her because he has found out she had sex with two guys at the same time. Then she yells something like 'What the fuck do you care? That was me! I was an experimental girl, for Christ's sake! And I don't have to apologize to you because of the things I have done!' Every time I watch that particular part, it always makes me cry. Because that was also me, you see. I WAS an experimental girl. Just that. I was curious, I was precocious, I wanted to find out everything. And when I touched a boy, and the boy touched me, it felt good and wanted more, that was all.

Now I wonder, why did I have to swallow all that bullshit about how I was going to hell from my parents, from my teachers, from my so-called friends and their parents, who'd found out about my goings and sermonized me about what a naughty girl I was and about how, if I kept acting like that, no boy would ever love me? And I came to believe it, because all the guys I was with never spoke to me again unless they wanted to fuck me. If they didn't, or if their nice girlfriends were around, they'd ignore me.

So yeah, I felt very bad indeed. I felt I had ruined my life and I had to change my course of action. So when I finished junior-high and came the time to choose a high-school, I decided to make a clean break and chose a school which was completely opposite to the one I'd been all my life. I decided I'd make new friends who would never find out what horrible slut I really was, and would never despise me the way my schoolmates at junior high did.

Didn't work out either. It was my mistake; I chose a school which was totally liberal minded in a Beverly Hills 90210 fashion. Silly me. By then I had adopted the look that was to be my new uniform for years to come: dressed in black (and as baggy as possible), no make up, no long nails (since I chewed on them and still do). Besides, I couldn't care less about new Versace's collection. So no, it didn't work out at all. On my first day at high-school, I listened two minute's worth of conversation, heard Calvin Klein about six times in a row and decided I didn't want to listen anymore. So I spent my time in high school like a plant, showing up only when indispensable. When I could avoid classes, I would play hookey and hide in my car to read. I read a lot through high school, believe me.

I think now that was the time I came the closest to going crazy. I went out of myself. I can't explain it any better than that. I'd come to my senses suddenly, and realized I didn't remember anything at all about the last two or three weeks. Seriously. I had gone to school, back to my house, etc., and I had no recollection whatsoever of it. I thought a lot, too. I thought about how worthless I was, how I couldn't make friends, how nobody cared for me, how stupid I was, how every man I ever came in contact with treated me like dirt. A nerd got a crush on me, he offered me a ride home one day and tried to rape me. He almost succeeded.

I've always been an insomniac, but that was the worst time. I'd go to bed at about 12, lay awake till four or five in the morning, then get up at 5:30 and drag myself through another horrible day. I started drinking and smoking pot to fall sleep. Then I started sniffing coke to be awake during the day. I'd take a knife and slash my arms. Once I took my mother's Valium and swallowed the whole pack. I panicked and induced vomit, and then slept for almost a day. I don't think that was a serious suicide attempt, but if I had had a gun, I might have done it. I don't know. I felt terrible every single day and every single hour of my life. I started eating my books (I'm not kidding; I have many books which are eaten at the corners and I had to throw many away because half the fucking book was eaten away) and I eventually stopped reading. As I had to live in a world where nothing nice, nothing sensible, nothing meaningful ever happened (at least, to me), I didn't want to know of other worlds where good things (or at least purposeful things) sometimes happened).

On these conditions I had to make my choice of career. At a time when I felt I was good for nothing, hat no one would ever love me or at least appreciate me, when I didn't know what I wanted to do except be loved by someone. As you can see (or even if you don't see), I though I had much more important things to do before choosing what I wanted to be.

So I told my parents I didn't want to go to college right away. They hit the roof. They said they wouldn't let me ruin my life. I told them I didn't want to waste time studying when I felt I had much to do with myself first. So what is the problem, they demanded to know. I think I'm depressed, I answered. I think I have a low self-esteem. Depressed? What do you mean, depressed? You are not depressed! You are very happy!. Ah, OK, mom, thanks for letting me know how I feel. I don't know what I'd do without you. I want to prove to myself I'm worthy. But you're very worthy, they said. You're VERY intelligent, you're capable, you're pretty, what else do you need to know? See, I said, I don't know that. I want to work and earn my own money, and find my own place and prove myself I can do it by myself. But you CAN'T!! they gasped. You can't possibly make it out there by your own! Ah, I said, what about all you just said about how great I am? Where is the confidence now?

And so on and so forth.

Finally, they made an alliance with all of the family friends and coaxed me into going to college. You like English, don't you? And you like to read? There you go! English Literature is just for you. Besides, as you've been translating for such a long time, it's the perfect career choice for you! My, but I HATE translating. That doesn't matter, dear, it's a perfectly proper job for a young lady.

In the end, my mom filled out the application form and sent it. I took the test, I passed it, and I was in college. Feeling depressed, feeling suicidal, feeling, in short, like shit, I started studying a career I hadn't chosen.

I liked it. I'm not going to say I didn't. Classes were OK. For the first time since elementary school, I was getting straight A's again. But I kept thinking, there, here you have the essay on Margaret Atwood. Now what? ihatemyselfihatemyselfihatemyself. So, Joseph Conrad is about the greatest guy ever alive and holding a pen, so what? ihatemyselfihatemyselfihatemyself.

I wasn't concentrating. I didn't give a shit for school and only did well because people were a little more interesting than in high-school. I met Arwen at college.

And thus, when I had the first opportunity, I dropped college and started working. Teaching English don't you know. Translating. My parents were devastated, gave up their high hopes of me and focused on my brother. I eventually took the step and moved in with a friend. My parents hit the rook, then thought it again, made peace with me and since then our relationship has been perfect.

Whatever. The rest doesn't belong here.

Suffice it to say I think that now is the moment for me to go to college. I don't feel the way I felt anymore. I don't like myself yet; what I feel about myself is what you feel for a relative who amuses you but you can't quite like. But 'we' get along. I feel deeply loved: now I feel the love from my parents, the love from my brother, and the love Belendor feels for me. And you know what? That's about all the love I need.

I don't feel especially valuable now, but I have achieved that independence I so fiercely sought when I was younger. I have my house and I can support it, with or without Belendor. I can make it out in the world by myself. I know that now.

I am not a whore, and I never was. I was a curious, precocious child who wanted to experience everything the world has to offer, and it was the most natural thing for me to start with other children. Unfortunately, I was misdirected and led to believe my curiosity and my energy were something dirty and debasing. There was no one there to point out to me that what I felt was totally natural, and to teach me how to behave healthily. I wish someone had been there for me.

So, having sorted out the bulk of my issues, I think it's time for me to go back to school.