my motherhood-daughterhood class is kind of a joke. i don't get anything out of the "lectures" aside from maybe a few laughs once in a while. danielle calls it "tedious class". my professor wears fake eyelashes that are always partially falling off, lots of makeup, large earrings and pearl necklaces. she is 70 and has a good heart, but says "you know" too often. ironically, it was in this class today that i had the most important realization i've had in months.

today to escape the slow-ticking second hand i was reading one of our books for the class, my mother, my self, to prepare for a paper due next week about my relationship with my mother. something in the book caught my eye. it was in a chapter about women being labeled 'the loving sex'.

He will make love to us in the moonlight to the sound of violins, but in the morning he will shower, shave, put on his clothes, and go to the office in pursuit of his "real" interests. In almost every novel you read or film that you see, love is a disaster for the female protagonist, depriving her of initiative, courage, or sense of order, sending her down into masochism and loss of self.

i'm not sure i agree with all of that, and it is very out of context, but it was those last three words that hit me. the answer that i haven't been able to figure out for months. was it my birth control pills messing up my hormones? was it because it was winter? no. i have been feeling so lost, so strange, because i have lost my self.

it is so easy to just want to hang out with joe all the time, to go wherever he goes so i don't have to drive, to hang out with his friends because i like them just as much as mine (and they have become mine as well). i have been cheating myself. joe continues to pursue his interests, recording, working on his basement, while i have allowed mine to slip away quietly. i've been so discontent sometimes because i don't know who i am or what i want anymore. i haven't been acting, speaking, or thinking like myself. and now i know why.

now i know what i have to do. rebuild my self. get back into my own personal interests that don't involve joe necessarily. hang out with friends on my own sometimes too. at the start of our relationship i was too far one way, extremely busy all the time and not really seeing/talking to joe as much as preferred. now i've gone all the way to the other side of the scale. it's time to gravitate back towards the center and stay there, with joe's and other friends' help, but also doing some of the work all by myself. (i simultaneously dread and can't wait to talk to joe about this tomorrow.)

a lot of other things have been resonating with me from that book, but for another time. and thanks for changing your layout, allie. i appreciate being able to read it.

past future

last five entries:
blisters and bruises - 03.18.08
dorsey - 03.13.07
finding peace - 02.02.07
unintentional clean slate - 09.11.06
natural born cyborg - 06.23.06