It's deja vu all over again...

[katster]

ugh, reading journal entries is reminding me of my psych quiz earlier today. I mean, literally, down to identifing the psychological defense mechanism involved. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Dunno which is worse, the fact that I know this garbage, or the fact that if LJ posts had been on the quiz today I'd have done a whole lot better. :P

But enough deja vu, I don't wanna think about glitches in the Matrix.

Lesse, what else happened today that's worth mentioning? Oh yeah, I became one of those godless commie hippy pinko card-carrying members of the ACLU. And I'm going to write the dear Rev. Falwell a nice little letter thanking him for reminding me to join said organization.

I could have a lot of fun with Rev. Falwell's statement right here, but I won't. Needless to say, if you subscribe to Rev. Falwell's views, and need somebody to blame, I'll be your scapegoat for cheap. :)

And it rained here today, first time in a while we've had a really good rain soaking in a while. Next clear day should be gloriously clear, where the mountains aren't covered by greasy smoglike sludge. Shasta might even look like a white snowcapped peak again, instead of a mirage in the distance...

As I mentioned in a earlier LJ entry, my Berkeley grad apps showed up today. Waiting for three more to come out of the air, and then I'll get busy. Heck, I might even be getting busy now, I have to schedule that GRE test. Ugh.

***

Two weeks. And the world's still here.

I'm not fully here. I was juggling a pretty heavy load before the events of September 11th, and tossing that fscking mess onto the pile I was already juggling is a pretty impossible task. But it's difficult.

My psych teacher listed on the board the day after four groups that would be badly affected. Children, people who are prone to heart attacks, people in the caring professions, and people with already existing mental/emotional disorders. And I fall squarely in the last camp.

It's hard. I feel like I'm the only one still dealing with the aftermath of my world being turned upside down. I feel so much like I'm the only one who hasn't managed to swallow it, or at least put it aside. Everybody from my president down is asking me to return to normal, and I can't. How can one be normal in an unnormal world?

It's seeped through enough that I've had two teachers comment on my behaviour. (sleeping in math class on a regular basis worries the math teacher, and in my frustration, I started to whine in psych class, and my teacher, who knows me very well, and knows that's not normal behaviour, asked me what was up.)

I'm worried. Not only for the past, a past I'm not sure I can bear with the rest of my load, but my future? What happens from here? I am twenty-two years old, I will be twenty-three in two months. What kind of future lies ahead for me? Will I forever be in fear because the emblem on my passport is an eagle?

And that's what I'm thinking of right now, hanging by a moment, both hoping for peace and praying the wrongdoers will be brought to justice..

o/~ what of the future, Abraham/ Will we achieve some peace/ From these solitudes we wander in/ Will there be a release/ Will my children learn to find a way/ to bridge the distance I have not/ To learn the scars of history/ Are sometimes best forgot? o/~

Comments

The World Turned Upside Down

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Heh, I never could figure out the conservatives' thing with the ACLU. An organization devoted to upholding and defending the Bill of Rights and almost universally they think it's the ruin of this country. I always liked that speech in The American President about the ACLU.

I've already said this to one person, don't feel bad or guilty in some way about your reaction. It's your reaction, not the wrong one or the right one, just the one you're having. There's too much else to worry about. Funny what you say about people with preexisting disorders though, I haven't had much reaction at all, most of it's been to the country's reaction; it's kind of ironic, the opinion and reaction I've seen that's closest to my own is what I read in WS2's journal when I got curious about what she had to say about it a while ago. Maybe I'm emotionally numb after all this time or maybe my blackened, withered old cynic's heart is just more ready to accept the idea of the world as an unpleasant, unforgiving place where bad things frequently happen. Oh well, too much else to worry about and, as you say, it passes.

"You see, feeling screwed up in a screwed up place at a screwed up time does not mean that you are screwed up, if you catch my drift."

Or maybe I've used that quote with you before.

[kuangning]

I've looked long and hard for this since you posted this entry. I want you to know that I love you, that that's not going to change, and that whatever you do while you're trying to deal with this.. I'll be waiting for you when you get back. Until then? Here's something from the Griever's Bill of Rights.

1. We have the right to a grief that is complex, chronic, and disabling.
   
   
2. We have the right to be free of stigma.
   
   
3. We have the right to be angry about our loss and to be able to express it appropriately.
   
   
4. We have the right to feel responsible for things we did or did not do in relation to our loss. We may or may not come to feel differently.
   
   
5. We have the right to grieve in a manner and timeframe that works best for us. We don't have to "get over it."
   
   
6. We have the right to ask "why."
   
   
7. We have the right to never be as we were before.