From the time I was 9 till the time I was 16, I wore nothing but black and gray, cultivated my pale, hopped from shadow to shadow to avoid sunlight, cut my nails in sharp triangles, and brought clear, unmarked bottles of V8 to school. When people asked what I was drinking, I glowered at them and asked what it LOOKED like I was drinking. (Blood, naturally.) I enhanced my slight widow's peak with mascara and wore velvet gowns to school till I was like 14 or 15, and then I switched to black leather. I wore long capes and robes that sometimes tripped me during athletic activities. By the time I was 12, I'd devoured Leonard Wolf's annotated version of Dracula, seen the 1931 and the Francis Ford Coppola movies, and read a biography on Bela Lugosi by Arthur Lennig several times over. I even submitted an essay on the dead person whom I'd most like to contact, using that biography as a source. (The person was Lugosi, not Dracula.) My dad used to tell me if I studied the Bible as hard as I studied my vampire books, I'd have it memorised. Not to blaspheme, but it simply wasn't in my scope of interest. The books called to me, drew me to them, and I heeded the call.
I wasn't STUDYING, per se, and I didn't read them because I thought they were romantic. They were a part of me, of who I was, and my innate bullshit detector allowed me to see the flaws in the mythology. It was fun having something about which to be bitter, and being a vampire rights activist worked for me. Did my schoolmates and their parents think I was a freak? Absolutely. Did it stop me? Absolutely not, and you know why? Because I just looked out for Number One. My best friend was #21197206359324, the magical little piece of plastic that let me read-- no, absorb-- what I wanted to my heart's content. I didn't care what anyone thought about me, and if people were willing to let their parents get in the way of our friendship, that was their tough cookies because they were the ones missing out.
And it's the same with you. If your friends are going to let themselves be completely and totally whipped by their parents, aren't driven enough to find ways to communicate with you, then they're not really good friends at all, and there's no sense in wasting your love. Heartless? Maybe, but practical, and it'll keep you from getting hurt in the long run.
Plus, you know, I was absolutely gorgeous back then. People envied my hair and vicious confidence, and the way I never needed anybody but myself. They were also scared shitless of my violent temper, unpredictable deviance, and wrathful nature. Eventually, the school made me stop talking about vampire-affiliated stuff because I was scaring the little pussies in my class, but if I'd known exactly how retarded they were, I could have found loopholes. For instance, they all thought Swan Lake was "the Dracula theme song." Yeah, before it was used by Carl Laemmle Jr. in the 1931 production of Dracula, it was a well-known classical piece by Tchaikovsky. Cultural deprivation much? And once when I went back to visit, I wore a pendant that was a pretty famous vampiric symbol, and the staff just said, "Wow, that's a pretty necklace!" Yeah. Shiny. And they had no bloody clue what it was about. I'd led the Bloodsuckers Aren't Terrorists Society (BATS) and printed out my own pins. I'd banged the hottest guy in school and used him as a guinea pig for my childish vengeance methods. I got a rep as the freakiest girl in school. And until the staff tried to censor me, I was having the time of my life.
Then around the time they took away my First Amendment rights, someone else came to live with me, in my body. I think she pretty much let them know what she thought of them all when she stood up and shouted "Sig Heil!" to the whole class. She took over when I got too angry to control myself. I blacked out, she beat people up, and I bullshitted my way through the essays and apologies. There are times being a monologue queen comes in handy, and even though I was a little bitter about it then, we made a great team. I had maybe a couple close friends who knew who she was and everything, and it was all fine and dandy till she decided to help me get back at one of my exes for siccing her mom on me.
See, I believe in fighting your own battles. It's nice to have people stand up for you, but you really shouldn't get parents involved in a fight between people in a different generation. Parents are peripheral, from my experience, and there's no way they can fully understand everything that's going on in your life from your perspective. So my girlfriend at the time sicced her mom on me, and I dumped her for it, and then she said she was going to dump me anyway for not listening to what her mom had to say. (There are MANY different versions of this breakup, and the ones told by me are all true. It was VERY complicated.)
So then Desmoda decided to hit Marie where it hurt, and yeah, I'd say she did a pretty good job. Don't get me wrong. I take full responsibility for my actions. Like, it was my choice to send emails supporting the stuff Desmoda had sent and goading Marie toward the conclusion that I was under a powerful curse that had just been reactivated (by Desmoda) and that I'd die if she didn't sleep with me. And it was my choice to log on under Desmoda's name and goad her even further. But it was originally Desmoda's idea. Like I said, we made a great team.
Then I get an email from Marie saying the following:
[i]It's over. I don't believe in the curse, Desmoda, Celestia, or any of that. I don't want to go trick-or-treating with you or go over to your house. I already have a new costume. Would you like me to mail the bathrobe back to you? I'd need your new mailing address.
I know that you're never going to forgive me for this, and you'll probably hate me for the rest of your days. I hope that Ass-Man can make you happy where I couldn't. You're no longer part of my life.[/i]
I know that you're never going to forgive me for this, and you'll probably hate me for the rest of your days. I hope that Ass-Man can make you happy where I couldn't. You're no longer part of my life.[/i]
Harsh, right? The thing was, I forgave her, despite the fact that I was really hurt by her choosing to solve her problems through avoidance rather than, you know, discussing them. I can understand why she felt she couldn't trust me, and I was about ready to kill myself and Desmoda. I almost did. I think that was my first serious suicide attempt. But, she never forgave ME for it. It's been over three years, and she still hates me for that stupid, childish prank. And it's all my fault. I could have said no. I could have said I didn't want to make things worse than they were, but I had to have my vengeance. I had to fuck things up beyond repair, and I'll be paying for it all my life. She hoped that I would hate her and that I would never forgive her, so that she wouldn't have to deal with me anymore, because she knew that she could never forgive me.
I have known so many people who censor themselves in ways both little and big. Some of them hide who they are because they're afraid their friends or friends' parents won't like them. Some of them pretend to be somebody else. Some of them hide behind alternate personalities, if they have them, or create personas behind which to hide, and there is nothing sadder or uglier that you can do to yourself. Yes, you should take pride in your self-presentation, but not if it means pretending to be something that you're not. Taking pride in yourself means not misrepresenting yourself in any way, and making sure that you are at your best. Not hiding behind a mask of genteelness and glamour because you're afraid you have nothing to offer. Believe me, you do, and today's technology makes just about anything possible.
Some people are going to hate you for who you are, but that's because deep down, they believe their life sucks and that they are pathetic nobodies. It doesn't matter how confident they act or how cool they pretend to be. It is an act, and it is a lie, and the mask will eventually fall off. Do you HONESTLY care what a self-loathing pathetic nobody thinks about you? I didn't think so.
Some people are going to hate you for who you are, but they'll hate you more for pretending to be something that you're not. That's what EBC tried to do. They tried to make us all into Stepford children, and many of us alumni have bitter memories of that school for censoring us. I understand the need to restrain us from violence or harmful acts, but there's no harm in having a little fun and trying to figure out who you really are. If that means wearing strange clothes and talking with an unusual cadence, so be it, if that's who you feel you are. Playing Swan Lake on the piano is not harmful to anybody, and neither is wearing black makeup or quoting a famous Thomas Hood poem. People earn a lot of money doing those things, and Becoming Oneself is an art form. Art should not be censored, especially not for the sake of conformity.
Recently, I started writing a screenplay. The script was based on a series of chats that took place between myself and my friends. Some of us were trying on different personae and seeing which ones fit us best, and some of us were just screwing around for the hell of it. Silly kid stuff. Well, when I was typing it up, I couldn't help but notice how wooden some of them were, how generic, how uncomfortable the writers had seemed in their new roles. It was repetitive, it didn't flow, important plot points went ignored, questions unanswered, characters were brought in and then unspokenly tossed out... It was a mess of illogic! Aesthetically speaking, a complete and utter disaster! The writers were trying too hard to force themselves into roles that didn't fit their personalities, and they were doing it for a prolonged period of time. They got frustrated with themselves and each other, and half of them fabricated as many distractions as possible as a smoke screen for the fact that they just didn't know what they were doing anymore. The other half got paranoid and assumed there was some evil conspiratorial ploy at work... and these wonderful friends almost ended up cutthroat enemies!
Some of them decided to take a break from it, but the others got bored, impatient, and hungry for more drama, and it was just a bad turn all around. Sure, a little drama's great when you're writing, but not when it bleeds over into your real life that much. We expressed a yearning for things to go back to when we first started out, when we were just goofing around and writing stuff because we could, instead of trying to make some big Production out of it. Eventually, we all had to take a break and figure out who the hell we were, because the fun had gone out of trying on the new roles and now we were stuck with all the wrong sizes. When we start up again, if we start up again, hopefully everyone will have learned their lessons, and it'll be a better show all 'round. We might even hire some actors and make a film out of it. But none of that can happen until we figure out who we are and stop trying to play roles that don't suit us, and allow each other to let go of the roles they no longer want or need.
Because, let's face it, dysfunction makes for terrible showmanship.
In conclusion, you only have this one life, unless you believe in reincarnation, and you might not even come back as another person! So get out there and live it, and don't let what anybody else says get you down! Some people will hate you, but if you are your true self, you'll gain many more admirers than haters. Never let your background or past mistakes dictate your future. And above all, remember that you'll always have at least one supporter in your quest: sensational, libertine, fabulous me.
Good luck!
