Masquerade ball
An entire day of sitting behind long tables in high-back chairs in a windowless classroom, discussing abstract concepts of moral philosophy and health ethics made my mind wander a bit. Though, speaking tangentially, it wasn't too far askew. I thought about the roles we assume in everyday life that consume and pervade our very essence, even down to the subconscious subset of intuition and reason. My role as daughter, sister, student, friend, and functioning member of society all have weighted values put upon them. Seemingly until somewhere around age 22, I didn't really have an identity that I embraced besides daughter. Until then, there were never any alternatives for complete obedience and utter compliance, even so far as to extend the fact that I was going to base my entire life’s career on the one that my mother so painfully left behind.
So was there a sharp knife of epiphany that finally burst this glistening bubble of naiveness? The answer is no. In so many ways, I still see myself making up for what I will always keep in a guilty, heavy heart the disappointment that I caused my parents. It explains a lot of my idiosyncrasies, really. I see it clearly in the drive for sudden, unprecedented independence. I also see it in the undying assertion that I can in fact achieve my own method of success, even if it comes in the form of shifting work and school into overdrive, to the point where at any given second, I feel the impending gloom of a fatal crash. Sure, I can brush aside the questions and answer that I like to “keep busy”, or that I couldn’t possibly afford to go to school without working full-time, which I know is true, but there’s something beyond that. And it is there, lurking snidely out in the shadows and will remain there until that one fateful day that I will have the courage to confront it myself, face to face.
Speaking of shoddy character development in an assigned role, apparently I’m not playing the friend one quite so well either. The other night, Chris asked me for, what I view as a somewhat large favor. While every cell of being screamed “No, no no! Run for the hills!” I understood the intention behind it, and so I asked for time to consider the options. As of yet, past deadline, I haven’t come to a decision yet, and hope this process of deliberation ends soon. I guess the key factor is my own personal feelings, and eliminating them leaves an objective standpoint, which would only view this as something beneficial for a friend. I’m suddenly reminded of a song that I used to know by heart, that became a personal mantra after awhile.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/everclear/51998.html
posted by Sheila @ 10/03/2004 08:51:00 PM
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