One More Day In Mequon

I'm feeling quite strange today. Its a mixture between a bunch of emotions.

1. Excited- I'm finally getting out of this prision environment I've spent 17 years of my life in, which is known to us as the lovely Mequon, Wisconsin. FInally and adult. No more curfews. No more nagging parents. What else could a kid ask for?
2. Nervous- As shit, I must say. I'm leaving pretty much everything I've ever known- Which, I do have to say, I've liked in the past, HELLO Norway? So I have no idea why it's harder for me now. Possibly that I've settled down to the idea that I will be spending the rest of my life with Anders, so there's no like Big Search for me at college. No reason for me to go out and party and get drunk off my ass. Maybe I won't fit in. Then again, maybe I will.
3. Uber Depressed- After tomorrow I won't be able to talk to Anders for about 2 weeks. I'll be beginning my WInona State College Adventures and he'll be off the Poland and Germany once I'm done with my freshman orientation. It's always especially hard for us when we don't talk. We rely so much on each other for support to get through these years apart. I mean, it's so difficult, but it is definitely worth it. I wouldn't wait or be in so much emotional pain for anyone else. He's the love of my life, so I'll wait for him. And not talk to him for a while so we can each take care of what we need to do.
4. Stressed- I'm super stressed lately about money. Though I can afford my first year of college (with the help of scholarships and loans) I still need to find a way to help Anders get $18,000 so he can come study in the US next year. My parents adivse me to not help him out and take care of myself. What they don't realize is that when Anders and I committed ourselves to each other we meant we'd be a team forever. That includes in times of financial crisis. That would be now, and possibly forever if our loans get large enough...
5. Misplaced- My family is hosting a girl from Japan this year and she has now taken over what once was 'the marissa room.' The past few weeks have been filled with emptying out my closet and under the bed and getting EVERYTHING out of my room. It's very strange because I'm losing the idea of living at my parents home. I no longer have a room here, so I guess that means I'm supposed to be up and out on my own. Adios to the comforts of an always full refrigerator or washing machine right down the stairs. Hello to cafeterias and laundromats. Fun. It's so exciting. But so scary. I'm so ready for this new change in my life. I'm getting so bored and that's why I need to get out. It's my life. My life is an adventure. So I'll strap on my seat belt and go for a ride.

my happiness

rational/irrational thinking

I've been going through this struggle for the past few years about religion and what I believe and what I don't believe. It's been a difficult journey that appears so show no end in the near future.

In the past few months, this hole has been forming in my chest, and I don't know what it is coming from... if it's because I am missing all of my friends and the life I had in Norway before, or am I having a difficult time adjusting back to life at home, or am I just unable to have faith in things I can't see?

This is an especially hard time now because my boyfriend lives on a whole different continent than me. I sometimes think it is totally foolish to keep our relationship going, even though I love him so incredibly much. I miss him every day, and in that respect, I guess I've been looking for a god or any kind of hope to help me through the days and months that we are apart. It is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, to hold onto something that now seems so foreign and distant, even though he is the one thing that I want the most in the world, and I can't live without. I fear that since we live so far away from each other, we will drift apart as well. It is scary and it makes me feel so alone.

I guess that in that respect, I've been hoping there is a god, because I don't think I can handle all of this on my own. But as for now, I just can't seem to believe.

Lack of Motivation

Swirling bed sheets that I hide under
Bed too warm for leaving
Lazy eyes when night brings slumber
Silent all through evening

Gentle comfort whose hands embrace
Open pillow whose simple grace
Helps guide my face to find its place
At least through night I’m breathing

two versions of a poem i wrote for anders

Version 1

When I think of you
I feel your shaking hands grab hold of mine
Giving me relief
As I lay hurting in a castle of white beds and bandages
I search your clear blue eyes for any hesitation
In the way you love me
None
The elation overwhelms
And my lungs forget to breathe
I wear a scar on my side as proof that on that day
My soul was sewn together with yours

When I think of you
I smell the sweet dew from that night
We biked and lay in the grass on the side of the road
Where the sky refused to shut its eyes
And succumb
To a blanket of darkness

But now I lay
Under these worn out bed sheets
With cold thighs
Wishing I could feel your pulse drum
Through your hot skin
A quickening rhythm on my back

I want to watch you trace your fingers
Playing connect the dots
On my universe of freckles
I call my body

And after our fun and games
I want to dream beside you
And wake up
Making those dreams come true

But for now
I count the months, minutes, and moments
Watching them slip on by
As I drag my feet through this tough world
Feeling only half a person
Terrified to be alone
I want to make memories
I wish you were here




Version 2

When I think of you
I feel your shaking hands grab hold of mine
Giving me relief
As I lay hurting in a castle of white beds and bandages
I search your clear blue eyes for any hesitation
In the way you love me
None
The elation overwhelms
And my lungs forget to breathe
I wear a scar on my side as proof that on that day
My soul was sewn together with yours

When I think of you
I taste the tangy bubbles of Villa Farris
Dance a doh-see-doh on my tongue
As I chug yet another bottle
Of bubble gum flavored soda

When I think of you
I hear laughter and the chatter of passers-by
While we rest on splintering wood
In the hot sunlight
Between fishing boats
And bug eyed tourists
On aker brygge

When I think of you
I smell the sweet dew from that night
We biked and lay in the grass on the side of the road
Where the sky refused to shut its eyes
And succumb
To a blanket of darkness

When I think of you
I see a future of toothy smiles
And bad hair days
Adorned with milk spills
And screaming children
Yet I set the purest form of happiness
And it is beautiful

Thoughts from a teenage atheist

From the day I was born
White dress, cold water
A child of sin
Every Sunday I listen to the man in a robe
He preaches with passion
Booming voice filled with unworldly wisdom
He lectures on our savior
The lord that will scoop up our souls
And guard them
Safekeeping.

He mentions not what will happen to those
Who sit and ponder silent and alone in the back pew
Drained of faith
But filled with a promise of mankind on earth
Not one of god.

No reason to bury the fear of an inevitable end
Under sacraments and holy confessions
I have no fear, but forever is frightening
I won’t accept and believe
I will question and reject
I don’t believe in your god
Cold ground and decomposition
My future
You may say for not believing
All that waits for me is a
Happily never after
I beg to differ.

Poetry?

What makes a poem a poem?
I could argue anything is a poem.
My words which I spit from my pursed lips
Take their place in the world.
Significant?
Maybe not.
But then again
my words may crash upon the world
becoming a surging tidal wave
and destroy all that is now
and create place for new.

letter after letter
I plant the seeds
shaping words
which in turn
burst into bloom
ever changing this world.
forming this.
A poem.

The Dark Knight

Last evening I witnessed possibly the greatest movie ever made to this date: The Dark Knight.

For those of you who do not know the story of Batman, here is a short and quick refresher. The Batman Saga begins, of course, with a young boy, Bruce Wayne, who becomes deathly afraid of bats after falling into the entrance of a bat cave as a small child. After asking his parents to leave in the middle of an opera performance one night, Bruce feels guilty, as his parents were both shot and killed outside the theater on their way home.
As he grows older, Bruce begins to deal with the pain and suffering by studying to become a ninja in the League of Shadows. Finding out later that this would not suit his needs, Bruce returns to his city of Gotham to try to save it from its terrible destiny. Boy, was he in over his head...

This second movie, The Dark Knight, which continues the story, focuses on the joined forces of Batman, James Gordon, and Harvey Dent, as they try to stop the psychotic bank robber, The Joker (Played by Heath Ledger).
Now this character, The Joker, is the one I'd like to comment about. First, Heath Ledger, congratulations. That was possibly the best acting I've ever seen. All I can say, though, Heath, is wow. Seriously, I will need to see this movie many more times before I can comment more, because as of now, I am just in shock.
Second, I felt myself strangely drawn to The Joker. Although he was psychotic and out there to kill, many of his beliefs I found to be true. For example, when The Joker comments about government and order.

Introduce a little anarchy... Upset the established order... Well then everyone loses their minds!

Finally, The Joker is the most clever villain I have ever heard of. His extremely wreckless ways drive the viewer almost into insanity as they watch The Joker come up with one incredible scheme after another.

Well, I think I will just need to explain sometime my favorite villains, and why. Heath Ledger, and The Joker are consuming me slightly right now. And my thoughts are unclear.

But remember kids...

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

housewife

I don't understand why women complain about being housewives.

In our modern society, no woman is forced to become what was once viewed as the typical wife. Women are not expected to put on an apron and just serve her whole life as before. But some women, as myself, find this idea of a housewife intriguing. However old fashioned it may be, this idea of becoming a housewife seems rewarding to me, for I am one who wants to give and give and give. But many women, on the opposite side of the debate, find that 'housewife' is just a degrading cultural mistake that should ultimately be forgotten.

According to this study at National Statistics Online1, most women enjoy what they do at home, and most men enjoy their jobs as well. So whats the problem? Why does everything have to be about 'fairness?' These tasks which are assigned to each of the genders are gender fitting. For example, it makes sense that since men are bigger and stronger that they should work on physical tasks, such as yardwork. And women, who are taught from a young age to be care givers and detail oriented should take on tasks such as childcare and cooking.

Household tasks differ by gender. Men contribute most to yard work and home maintenace, while women carry 75% of the burden for grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, and dishwashing. The difference is that men's tasks can be delayed, while women's tasks are constant.2

But is it really fair for men to expect so much of women at home when the number of women in the workplace keeps growing and growing? Now do women not only have the responsibility of a job away from home, but they have the daily tasks that come along with having a household and children.

Women do more housework than men. On average, women ages 18-65 spend about 30 hours per week in paid employment and 22 hours doing housework (see also Arlie Hochschild's, The Second Shift, 1989). Men average about ten hours per week doing housework, a figure which changes little when their wives work and they have young children in the household.2

But then we must ask ourselves, as women, can we really place the blame on men? After all, it is ourselves trying to break the barriers and expand into the world as a fighting army of women in the workplace. We take on too much. I strongly believe that with the man as the provider for the family and with the woman as the primary caregiver and houseworker, a family can function happily and successfully. That is not to say that this 'system' of family is foolproof and the best way to live, but it seems to be the most practical, at least for my life.


1. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=288
2. http://asweb.artsci.uc.edu/sociology/kunzctr/stats.htm#housework%20and%20child%20care

the good citizen

I guess you could say that there is so much that society requires from us. At any age really. From the day we are born, we are little students to become the next great ones of the world. All of us have a purpose in society, whether good or bad. Both equally important in my opinion.

I have now reached the point in my life where society needs me to become like all of the others. I need to become one of the workforce. The monotonous life. 9-5 workdays. Well, not entirely like that. I have just recently gotten a job at Fiddleheads, a small family owned coffee house in Thiensville, WI. Not the typical teenage job, that is to say, but still a small step into conformity. I wonder often if this would make me happy. Conforming into all that society, my parents and family included, expects of me. I'm a free spirited type. And so the answer is an obvious, no.

I think of all that is required of each adult in this wonderful, free, country that I live in:
To be a good law abiding citizen, To be a good citizen in general (which usually involves becoming one of the religious people), To pay taxes, To hold a job, To support a family, To become a senior citizen and steal the money from the young who actually need it, To follow trends (whatever these may be), To support the horrible decisions of our government, etc. This list could go on forever and as it may seem like most of these are common sense and okay things to do, the people who carry out these actions are the problem.

I don't want to become the typical adult in America. Especially not like my parents. I love them and respect them, but their expectations in life for me are to become somewhat of clones of them. And I will tell you that there is no way in hell that I will let my life revolve around the 3 things that theirs do... 1) god 2) money 3)putting on the 'fake face' that comes along with being a 'good citizen'

So my question, and dilemma, is not really about conformity, its just about what I really want to do with my life. Maybe I could be happy getting a regular job and becoming a regular joe. But the probability of that is slim to nothing. Therefore, I will have to come up with something much more spectacular. (I've always had a thing for a little bit of spunk). Maybe I'll just marry my Norwegian man and then live in the forest and become one with nature. That wouldn't really be changing the world in the way I'd hoped, but It'd be doing something I love with the one I love. Well thats the thing about regular jobs too, are they bearable because people who have them either have nobody to come home to at all so they fill their empty lives with this nothingness they call 'productive achievements,' or do they have someone they love to come home to? Well I prefer, of course, the latter. And if I do get stuck as one in the workforce, I will be sure that I am always coming home to the one I love. (If I become a housewife then I'll always be there... I'll write about my dream of being one some other time...)

But, yes, I have begun my dreadful journey into adulthood. Conformity. Working. Well, if can't be all that bad... can it?