Just finished mailing out photos for a client; now I'm waiting for a phone call to tell me that my website is going to be finished today. There are two weeks of school left, but I feel like my mind has checked out already. I can't seem to motivate myself to write this paper (maybe because the subject is the history of money..) and I know it's completely unfair to my partner. I just feel..a bit hollow after last night.
I tortured myself once again by going over what has or hasn't happened in the past - all of the rejections I've felt over the years. I feel like a horrible human being. I said I forgave - but I can't seem to forget. So doesn't that cancel it out completely? I just don't see how I'm supposed to forget these things.
I re-read my own post..from August of..2006(?). When I was so excited for Stacey to come visit..and she forgot. That seems like something one would not easily forget. In similarity, I was reminded of a holiday party I had been invited to by a friend. We agreed that I would wait for her call to finalize the plans - and I did. For three hours. Finally, two other friends and myself drove to the house where the party was being held, and there was said friend's car in the driveway. I shook it off as nothing because I have been accused of over-analyzing. I picked up my phone to call her and poke fun at yet another demonstration of her forgetfulness. I could see her through the window. She picked up her phone, stared at it for a moment, and turned it off. Her voicemail picked up. And I drove away angry and confused and hurt. She didn't forget. She didn't want me there.
That's fine. I pulled through. I always do. I just..don't understand.
I don't know that I want to show my adoption pieces at my graduation show. I don't know what to make of them anymore. I feel indifferent now. The photographs are peeling off of the canvas and the sunlight has begun to wash out the writing. And I have done nothing to stop it. I stand in front of them for hours some days..and I still do nothing. Sometimes I don't want to touch them at all. I treat them like some fragile antique that will crumble away to ash if I lay even a finger on them. Other times I just want to pitch them over the balcony. I've sat on the stairs and cried as I stare at them, having absolutely no idea what to do with myself - with them - with anything. Last winter when I produced those pieces, I could not have been more passionate about them if you lit a match under my ass. I risked everything to make them. I risked more than everything when I showed them. Now I wonder why I bothered. Nothing has changed. My mother still seems to reject the notion that there is a woman out there somewhere who gave birth to me. I have yet to see a reaction from Stacey. Nothing - even apart from the artwork. I can't seem to wrap my head around this.
There are some days when I just want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs. But on days like this...I want nothing more than to just..disappear. I just don't want to bother. Every attempt at fusing my two seperate worlds seems futile. I doubt that my two mothers will ever meet.
In three months I will be graduating. Since December of 2006 I have dreamed of this day - hoping with everything in me that Stacey would come. That she would be a part of this - as she should. But apathy is seemingly winning over any other emotion. She may come, she may not. And aside from birth-parent-drama, I don't know how my adoptive parents will fit in to this. My father, the accountant, the CEO, the CFO - he attended my 'Best of Quarter' ceremony in the summer, at which a piece from the adoption project was being shown. I knew it was a risk to show him the work, but I did. I wanted so desperately for him to know and understand it. But his comment was: "So you tore up a photo and glued it to this one? And wrote some psycho-babble over it? And this is what passes for art these days, hm? Well, nice job." I think that was the most twisted, back-handed compliment I have ever recieved. I try and picture them at my gallery show. A semi-formal opening, walls covered in fine art. And I'm terrified because I don't know what they'll say. Regardless of what I produce, I'm afraid they won't understand it. I'm afraid I'll be standing there surrounded by the professors who've..rasied me, in a sense..and my father will be hurling insults amidst his laughter. And I'm afraid he's right.
I worry I should have stayed at Eastern. My mother wants me to get an Education degree locally once I've graduated. I don't think they trust me. I don't think they trust that my photographs are enough. I worry it's me that's not enough.
I was a horrible student growing up. School didn't suit me. I always had an 'A' in art and music and literature - but these were classes "that didn't really count". I never had above a 'C' in any math class since...second grade. I used to throw up in the mornings I knew we were getting our report cards because I knew what 4:00 pm meant. 4:00 was the yell-at from mom. It would last about an hour, and I would have an hour break before my father came home. Round 2. I would throw up at night - sick with worry about the future, about school, about me. I worried that their predictions were true - and that I would end up working at McDonald's for the rest of my life. This is the first time in my life I've maintained a good GPA. This is the first time in my life I feel like I'm learning. But I'm still scared it's not enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment