name: amber
age: 22
location: new orleans
aim: sapgirly mail work
March 05, 2002
I've been burning my bridges lately. With my friends. Teachers. Even my mother. I know this is bad for me but I make little to no effort to stop it. I realize I'm not starting a new life over there in Louisiana, just changing location, but I still find myself swearing people off, not caring about the present...leaving things unfinished. I have made such a small dent in Antioch and it's not that I feel I should have made more of an impression. Now I just want to escape what I have created here and go somewhere else. New Orleans. That plane ride will be extremely cathartic because I will be removing everyone I want to from my life, except, perhaps, for my mother. As an adult now (and I voted), I can see that the people that really matter are the ones that I want to matter and that that number is dwindling...quickly.
People that still matter in my life:
My father. He lives in San Diego and calls every Tuesday at 5 o'clock, exactly. I haven't seen him in well over a year. My brother goes down to visit regularly, but I have decided never to stay in that house again until my stepmother is gone, which I am convinced will be never. I plan on taking a road trip down there sometime so I can give him a hug and wish him good luck with the kids and all before going off to college.
My brother. Stupid little snot has grown on me over the years. I call him Jerm because his name is Jeremy, but when we were little his friends couldn't pronounce it, so they said Jermie. It stuck.
Kelly. I have always been slightly jealous of Kelly because she is so much cooler than me. She's always been more popular, prettier, better-liked. I often find myself wishing I was more like her, but sometimes not. We've always run with different crowds but kind of hung on. We've been buds since the 8th grade.
Phil. My better half. Phil wants to buy into the system but for some reason they just won't sell her a ticket. She cares a lot about appearance and clothes and popularity and all that, but she'll still hang out with people like me and Octavio. She's very, very smart but has a hard time admitting when she's wrong, which isn't often, which is much like myself.
Audrey. My new friend, Audrey is very cool, loud and rude, but that's what everyone loves about her, if they love her.
Octavio. My even newer but instant friend. His defining characteristic is his steadfast devotion to what he calls "cheesy pop:" Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince. He burned me "The Very Best of Prince" and "The Immaculate Collection" (Madonna) and I felt like I should return the favour, but nothing in my CD tower looked like anything he would want.
Liezl. Liezl is very cool because she likes me a lot. I don't know why, exactly, but she always laughs at my jokes and of course that makes me more prone to like her. Not that she isn't fun and not that she doesn't have a great personality but I think of all my friends, she is the one that thinks I'm the coolest. Gotta love that.
Mr. Myers. My all-time favourite teacher. Myers is so cool I can't possibly understand why he's a teacher. Not that I really plan on keeping in touch with him, but I care about the little guy and have no intention of being a bitch to him or shrugging him off. I'll keep visiting him until I graduate. Maybe I'll even get his email address.
And that rounds out my short list of people I still care about. I've ruined relationships I had with people everywhere. I don't know why, exactly, I'm doing this. Maybe I've just come to the conclusion that it's too difficult (or I'm too lazy) to keep up appearances around people that don't matter to me. In fact, that's probably it. I suppose I will have to start a new life in Louisiana.
I cleaned my room today, but the word "purged" is more fitting. Are you one of those people that claims not to be a pack-rat but is? I know I am. Of course, I am not obsessive-compulsive and I don't keep old bandaids or even old stuffed animals, but I find it so difficult to throw away that 4th grade yearbook-like-thing, with all the kiddie signatures. I find it doubly difficult to throw out my old poetry from the 5th and 6th grades: all that meaningless, petty, rhyming, disgusting, worthless crap I obsessed over. So I didn't. At least, not the poetry. But I did throw out just about everything else.
As I began cleaning my room today, I kept two things in mind: one, I'm going to college soon and I'm taking less than 10% of this stuff with me, if that and two, even if the rest of it is safe until I own a home, do I really want it all moved? So I threw out half the things in my memory drawers. I just hauled the garbage bags out to the dumpster now. I will not miss these things, but I still find it very very difficult to put them into the trash. What if, one day, I want to call that girl I knew in kindergarten, reminisce? I suppose I never will, but all the same...
I turned eighteen on March 1st. It's only slightly odd being an adult now. I'm going to go vote on the 5th; that should be strange. And even though I am now officially not a child, I still act like one. I love to make myself a martyr. It's so much fun but yet so painful. My friends didn't try to ditch me on purpose, it just kind of happened that way. I wanted to go to a club or a strip joint or something but we ended up driving to Jack London Square to eat pizza and see a movie. At least we got out of Antioch. I'm trying to act less like a child. I have resolved that I will not raise my voice to get attention. I know that sounds weird, but I do it all the time and I do it with really private information about myself that I have no shame letting everyone know, like if I spill out my heart everywhere people will pity me, or be interested, or care.
