Special

Over this weekend I experienced, and confess openly to, envy. I am happy with people with talent... musically. I am talented musically, but I can't do what they do. I wept over that, because I've wanted to stand out, and the more and more I try for that... that talent... I realize I'm nothing more than given by God's grace a few minor talents.

That hurts. We sang a song so beautiful I cried, because it reminded me of Finley so much. I wanted so much to be happy: the town was beautiful, my blood sugars were good the entire time (!!!), we stayed at a nice Bed and Breakfast, the music was good, the directors competent... I was happy, too. I felt like the people staying with me were my friends, and that maybe that was all I needed to have talent, you know? Friends.

I was wrong. I'm always wrong. All of them are "busy" indefinitely and get nervous when I spring an invitation on them. Poor Secret Keeper's so busy, she barely has time for air, so no best-friend mojo... not that I want to complain to her. She's already under so much pressure and in so much pain. Even Director seems distant and too busy focusing on self-loathing to attune to anything else. I hate self-loathing. I hate, hate, hate it. I would murder it if it were a person.

Jason, when he checked Facebook after one day of being at the Dorian music festival (actually in a town called Decorah), had seventeen updates. When I waited four days to check mine, I had none. No one at school even noticed I was gone. Jason had people calling to him as soon as he steps from the van, and no one even talks to me. That hurts. Finley's going to be too busy to talk to me for awhile... teaching.... pretending he has money to come see me when I know he doesn't...

Katie says that a relationship shouldn't rely on proximity (well, okay, it was more "relationships don't go so well if you depend on the other person", but still), but I don't think she knows how rarely I am spoken to. Total strangers loved me at Decorah, because they didn't know me. Here, people won't even give me a chance, no matter how I use these mini-talents of mine. I've got to get somewhere like Decorah. I've got to not be lonely. Take it one day at a time. I wonder who made that expression? I don't think it's accurate; lately, several days have been attacking me at once.

I keep trying to like myself, and really take the Portrait-lesson that Mr. Congdon, upon taking the picture of myself I drew last year, and Katie, who saw the portrait and took what I didn't, would both advise. I would trust either advice.

I wish I had someone to talk to like She does, but I don't. I can't even talk to Finley right now, not with all the shit he's dealing with--trying to get a new job and his own apartment, for example. Learning more about diabetes. Passing college. Being admitted to the college of education. Managing to feed himself on a very tight budget while managing still to make the drive he is now forced to make whenever he gets anywhere near me, ever.

You know what else really bothered me about Dorian? Everyone there... their calling was music, and they knew it. They felt it tug at their hearts and knew they would stay with it as long as they could, even the pianists and the flutists and the organist. Even the family who ran my bed and breakfast had a purpose to their lives.

I realized today, and throughout the weekend, that I do not have only one calling. I do not have one talent that is full, developed, and beautiful. Someday, I might have to give up my dreams to eat or pay rent, and that someday might be soon. I need something besides Finley's company--the full trust and love of a friend--to make my bread and butter my butter. Even a dog knows what their lives are for, yet I cannot chose a single future... a single star of light in a bright heaven where I am the sun....

Which grain of an hour glass makes us internal? Which cloud in the sky is the brightest? Which eon of air is the whisper wind's will?

Every teenager in the world likes to think that they have secret mutant powers, or they have some secret alter-ego, that they're tragically misunderstood.

I think they're idiots: my fear is being understood perfectly.

"But, as for whether or not I can chose a single entity of entirety for focus and live by that choice.... I could no sooner pluck a single star from the heavens than tell you tomorrow."

How many friends would I lose if they knew me? If they really knew me?