The Remains of a Poet

The way I will totally prepare to go to class - pack my bag, brush my teeth, put on my shoes, etc. - and then decide, 'Eh, screw it,' as I am turning to lock my door is probably one of my favorite things about senioritis.

So finals? Actually going a lot better than I would expect, all things considered. I mean, I already have two out of four papers written, which for me is pretty amazing. All credit, of course, is due to my amazing and awesome roommate, who dragged me to Starbucks and wouldn't stop giving me disappointed looks until I cracked and actually started doing homework. What did I ever do without her, seriously?

Of course, I also spent an hour today that I was supposed to be working on a paper writing fanfic. Because of course I can never be inspired when I have plenty of leisure time, but only during the most stressful times of the school year, like midterms and finals. I really like what I wrote, though, only it's from Ron's POV, and I've never written him before (I generally stay from Trio fics in general because there's so much canon stuff), and I'm worried I've made him too introspective. But it is set a good few years after he's had kids, so I figure it's not that much of a stretch. At least, I hope so. And come 12:30 Thursday, I will be FREE for three whole weeks, and I'll be able to fine tune it and stuff. So now I just need to survive until then.

You know, sometimes I feel like my entire life is just listening to people bitch about their lives and giving them advice they don't listen to, which is exactly why I don't want to be a psychologist.

But then I realized today that I'm a moron, because if that's my life anyway, wouldn't it be better if I were at least getting paid for it?

Dear "James",

I am not going to go to graduate school for literature. In fact, I am probably not going to go to graduate school at all. I am therefore not interested in simulating it in the "microcosm" of your undergraduate course.

Also, I still don't want to call you by your first name. It's weird.

Please look into this,
Trinity

----

In other news, I successfully solidified my standing as a total nerd in my Medieval class today by accidentally showing that yes, I get passionate about gender issues, but if you really want to get me excited, tie our reading back to Harry Potter. Apparently this will cause me to grin at you for five minutes like a very, very creepy moron. Er, sorry about that, classmates.

Also, I'm pretty sure my Women Writers professor is like, "WTF, what happened to you?" at me, because last semester I was super quiet in her class and when I did speak I was a total moron (I was, I never had a clue what was going on, I winged [wung?] that whole class), and now I'm all passionate and all, "Mr. Rochester is a jerk, and Jane needs to either go for it or get over it, and I don't feel bad for people with that much self-loathing, so there." I mean, I think she likes it, but I'm pretty sure she also thinks I must have changed dramatically over the summer. Which I didn't, really. I just actually care about her class now, that's all.

You know, school becomes significantly less stressful when you stop actually caring.

Which has taken me, let's see, all of two weeks to do.

Which is even more pathetic when you take into account that this is probably the second longest I've lasted.  *snerk* That's what he said!

HI SAN DIEGO!

I am currently freezing.

That makes you my favorite place in the entire world right now.

*sigh* It's good to be home.

**I feel like this is way more coherent in my head than it is here, but I think this conveys the basic idea...


Here’s the message I’ve been sent since I was a child, and I don’t think it’s specific to me: “You are less of a person because you don’t have the daddy-daughter bond. You are less of a person for something you have no control over. You are not worth as much. You are inferior. You are less than.” I actually used to believe that, too. They throw statistics at you all the time, and it’s hard not to assimilate the idea that you’re messed up because you didn’t have a daddy. You never stop to think that actually, it could just be you’re messed up because people are telling you you’re messed because you didn’t have a daddy. You actually can have only one parent and still be fine, funnily enough, as long as you don’t have people insisting the opposite or you’re smart enough not to believe them. It’s a rare person who’s that smart when they’re nine.

I figured it out eventually. Looked at my life one day and realized that, hey, incredibly, I was okay. I lived in an all-female household, and we were all okay. We did basic household fix-it jobs (painting, plumbing, putting up the Christmas tree, etc.), we made it through, we were happy overall, and we didn’t need any men to do it. I’d always been told that I needed a man to take care of me, and suddenly I realized that, actually, I didn’t. I’d been taking care of myself for years, and my entire life I’d been taken care of by women. And I was fine. I am fine. My entire life is one big argument against the idea that every woman needs a man in her life. You know what I found out after I realized that? To society, realizing that isn’t okay. After I started telling people about my epiphany, I was warned that I needed to rid myself of that notion at once because no man would ever want a girl who didn’t think she needed him.

I used to be pitied and patronized because the man in my life left me. Now I’m condemned because my very existence proves the societal myth of female dependency is a lie. Apparently, if you don’t have a dad, you aren’t allowed to be happy. You aren’t allowed to be okay. Your fate rests in the hands of that man, and if he doesn’t choose you, you can’t win. Ever. Maybe one day, if you somehow, incredibly, manage to stumble upon and/or seduce some other man who, against all logic, actually wants and chooses you, but even then there will be whispers of “daddy issues” or “problems submitting”. Your dad sets the tone for your entire life, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

That’s dumb. Even the women in my life have perpetuated this idea, and it’s not true. My mom says that maybe I’m right, but “I have to accept the reality of the world.” I have to accept the reality of a society that won’t accept me because my dad couldn’t be bothered to know me, and yet I refused to let his selfishness break me. I’m too scary to fit in, and that’s “just the way the world is”.

You know what? I’m not going to keep apologizing because my sense of self doesn’t conform to societies expectations for me. “That’s the way the world is” is the argument that sustained slavery, and it’s just as unsound in this case. Perpetuation of oppression does not validate it. You’ll never get me to pretend that it does.

You know what else? If –– whether because of social constructs or your own insecurities –– you need me to downplay my own strengths to make you feel better about yourself, you don’t deserve my respect. Especially if you feel it is my duty to do this simply because you happened to be born with a penis and Y chromosome and I did not.

Also, men don’t get to claim “respect” as their gender-specific desire, any more than women get to claim “love”. I am a woman, and I also desire respect. That’s really the issue. I’m being told I have to choose one or the other (and to a lot of people, by not valuing love above everything, as my gender supposedly dictates I should, I’m essentially choosing neither). I want both. Everyone wants both. I don’t think anyone, male or female, would say, “I hope to die unloved but respected,” any more than anyone would say, “I want to be a person everyone loves and nobody respects.” They’re both important. We all want both, whether we pee standing up or have menstrual cycles (or both). Honestly, I fail to see how sexual organs and hormone levels would have any impact on these basic human desires.

Contrary to how I’m sure it appears, I don’t actually hate men. I really, really don’t. I’m just sick of being told that I’m wrong. Not that I’m wrong about this issue, but that my very essence, my awareness of who I am as an individual is wrong. And yeah, men get the greater part of my ire here because apparently they’re the ones who are too insecure to handle the existence of girls like me. But that’s their problem. Why should I suffer for their insecurities? You know what the whole issue stems from? It’s insecure men trying to make women insecure so they can feel better about themselves. Well I’m not playing, and threatening me with a lack of romance isn’t going to get me to do so. If that’s what romance costs, it comes at far too high a price, and honestly, why would I want it? Why would I give up my independence and individuality to become a kowtowing bimbo for some chauvinistic asshole? That sort of romance sounds like it sucks. It definitely doesn’t sound like love.

My existence is not wrong. I don’t need a man to take care of me. My father’s inadequacies don’t get to define me, and neither do the insecurities of other men. And society may condemn me for that, but it will never be able to convince me otherwise.

[Error: unknown template qotd] When I was a kid, I always identified with Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia because we were both the youngest and precocious and I wouldn't have been at all surprised to find a magical forest in the back of my wardrobe.  In retrospect, I think there was more wishful thinking than actual similarities between us, but I still feel very protective of Lucy's character and have a soft spot for her.

The first time I read Harry Potter, when Ron tells Harry, "Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first," that totally stuck out to me, and I always felt like I could relate so much to that aspect of Ron's character, that frustration of always living in other people's shadows and not being taken seriously for yourself.  Actually, Ron might be the fictional character I do identify with most: hates school, scrapes by but is lazy, has cooler friends, uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism, insecure ... but loyal, too.  I would do almost anything for my friends and family.  So yeah, Ron Weasley is definitely one for sure.

And now, to sound totally pretentious and emo, there is so much about the Tenth Doctor that I relate to, particularly in Series 3 and 4.  "I'm always all right," and "They've all got someone else," really hit me hard.  I think he genuinely wants to be happy, but then other factors and things ... I can't explain it, but there are so many times when I watch him and I just ... I just get what he's feeling.  I just know.

There's bits of others, too.  Edna from Chopin's The Awakening and Nora from Ibsen's A Doll House both wanting to break free from the boxes society wants to put them in, but not quite knowing how.  Nora especially is awesome; I want to be her.  Valancy from L. M. Montgomery's Blue Castle because I live in my imagination more than in proper reality.  Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy because I know so well how it feels to be displaced and to not really know what to do about it.  Also, Sirius from Harry Potter for reasons I can't fully explain even to myself.  I've just always felt so connected to him from the moment he hugged Lupin in the Shrieking Shack.

There's probably loads more I'm forgetting, but this is already pretty long, so I'll wrap it up for now.