Things I Should Have Said A Long Time Ago

Dear Friend Who Doesn't Talk to Me as Much as He/She Used to,
Hi! How are you tonight? I'm doing ok myself. It's been a long time since we've had a meaningful conversation and there's some things I just want to tell you and questions I'd like to ask. First, I miss you. I miss hanging out and talking with you. I miss just being with you because you are a really fun person to be around. Why did you change how you acted towards me? We used to text every night and talk all the time, and then you just stopped. It kinda hurts because I don't understand why, and I'm wondering, did I do something wrong?  Did I do anything that scared you away or made you angry or creeped you out or bored you to death? if I did, I'm sorry. I know I'm not the easiest person to talk to at times or the most fun and amazing person in the world. In fact, I'm sometimes extremely awkward or even mean so I'm sorry if I offended you in any way. I know it's summer and we're both busy. I know I haven't had many or even any classes with you at school in the past few years. I know it's hard to be friends with someone who you don't see naturally everyday. That doesn't mean I want to let the friendship die. I should probably make more of an effort to see you but the fact that you aren't making an effort either makes me ask: Are you really my friend and if not, how do you really feel about me? You used to ask me lots of questions about me , how I was or how my day was going. I would then respond and ask about you and the conversation would go on and on for hours. Lately, I have to keep asking questions about you and how you're doing to have a conversation with you, and even when I do that, the conversation is so one-sided because I'm asking you all these questions about you and you're not asking any about me.  It's kinda awkward and tiring, and I feel like I'm being nosy, but I want to talk to you so I do it anyway. Do you not want to talk to me, or do you just not care about me and would rather talk about you? One of the things I loved about our friendship is that I thought you actually cared about me and how I felt and how your actions affected me, that you wanted to hang out with me and spend time with me because you liked me for who I was. That's how I feel about my friends so I guess I expected the same from you. Maybe that was an unrealistic expectation because friendship means something different to you? I don't know. Anyway, I still care about you, and I still want to be your friend. I don't, however, want to waste my time caring about a friend who doesn't want to be my friend. So, just let me know what's going on, please. I'd really like to know. You are a fantastic person and I'm really glad I got to be your friend even if it was only for a little while.
~Liz :)

I'm don't pretend to understand any of this

I've told a lot of people how weird my dreams are, but I don't know if anyone believes me. So, here are the three dreams I had last night, not the weirdest dreams I've had, but pretty strange. The last one is probably the strangest of the three :)

Number 1: I'm in the auditorium of SHS. Me and my friends Jimmy, Ryan, and Lauren are onstage practicing a tap dance/bow staff dance routine for the summer variety show (which does not exist). I'm having trouble learning the routine. Mr. McGlynn, choir teacher, yells at us to get off stage and let some other people practice. Jimmy begs him for one last practice runand so we do it then go backstage. I see a poster for musical auditions then start talking to this random girl about how nervous I am. I say to the girl, "You know, I thought this was a dream, but it can't be a dream because there's a sign for musical auditions." We walk out of backstage and around to where the stairs go up to the auditorium. There's a quartet playing music, and I tell the random girl, "You know, this must be a dream because if I was in a real variety show I would be in the quartet and not in a tap dancing group. I play violin, I don't tap dance." Suddenly, a cello appears in my hand and I start playing scales. The cello player of the quartet gives me a really mean look. A hall monitor comes up to me speaking gibberish. I tell her to go to the gym. Another hall monitor comes up to me. She looks like my great aunt Florence from Canada . She tells me "Don't put your teeth together when you tap dance because then all your gold fillings will fall out." I say "You remind me of my great-aunt Florence." She says "Oh that's nice dear, but I can't be your aunt because I'm Canadian." I yell "I'm a Canadian citizen!" and a crowd gathers around me and starts applauding. The hall monitor who looks like my aunt suddenly opens her mouth wider than humanly possible, and roars/laughs. I see that all of her teeth have gold fillings. End of dream 1.

Dream 2: I’m a friend of this couple who have been trying to have kids for a long time. The wife is really depressed all the time because she doesn’t have children. Finally, they have twins. I’m invited over to their house to see the babies. When I get there, I discover that one of the twins died, but the husband didn’t tell his wife because he didn’t want her to be depressed again. Instead, he made a robot child to replace the baby. As the years pass, the human child grows up healthy and strong but the robot is weak and can’t do the things his “brother” can. The mother doesn’t notice somehow, even though they don’t look like twins at all. I go yell at the husband to tell his wife the truth because she can’t love a robot for the rest of her life. End of dream 2.

Dream 3: I’m watching TV in a living room that’s not my living room. An infomercial comes on, advertising an old kid's TV show called Caillou that my brothers used to watch. It explains how in the first seasons, the stories of Caillou would be intertwined with stories about the adventures of Caillou’s his teddy bear, plastic dinosaur, and pet cat. During the third season, the creators decided to ditch the adventures of the bear, dinosaur, and cat because they felt it interrupted the flow of Caillou’s development as a child. The announcer says “Now for a limited time, you can buy all 10 seasons of Caillou for only $19.95, and we’ll throw in the Muppet Christmas Carol collection for free!” All of a sudden, I’m in one of the older episodes of Caillou in a story about the teddy bear (his name was Teddy) Teddy decides to take home a bunch of frogs eggs from a pond and let them hatch and grow up in Caillou’s room. There’s over 1000 little frogs! The baby frogs think Teddy’s their father. Now, one of the frogs is really nice and loves humans but the rest of these frogs are really evil. They want to kill humans because humans are destroying their habitats and crushing other frog eggs. When Teddy tries to take all of the frogs back to the pond where he found them, the evil ones realize that they’re losing their only chance kill Caillou’s family so they refuse to leave. Teddy takes them back home because he loves them. The nice frog sees what the evil frogs are trying to do so he comes to me and warns me. I go to the Schaumburg Airport and form a task force to get rid of the evil frogs. With my task force and the nice frog, I storm into Caillou’s house and go straight to his bedroom. Teddy’s lying comatose on the bed and all the evil frogs are on the pillow whispering lies in his ear. There’s a bunch of crushed tomatoes on the floor and the evil frogs are telling Teddy that the tomatoes are frog’s eggs that Caillou and his parents stomped on. They’re trying to convince Teddy to smother Caillou in his sleep. The nice frog stands up tall and shouts “Teddy! These are all lies! They just want to kill humans! “ The evil frogs are arrested, Teddy doesn't smother Caillou, the nice frog goes back to the pond, and the day is saved. The last scene in the dream shows a papa frog, mama frog, and their daughter and their son. The nice frog, who is now wearing a White Sox baseball cap, is dating their daughter, and comes over for dinner one night. At dinner, the papa frog says “You know, I hate those humans. I wish I could kill them all.” After dinner, the nice frog and his girlfriend are walking in the park holding hands and he says to her “I hope the fact that I love humans won’t be an issue with your father.” His girlfriend laughs and they walk into the sunset and live happily ever after. End of dream three.

Pam Beesly Rant

Remember that old episode of the Office, maybe in season 3, where Pam walks over the coals then tells everyone exactly what she’s feeling, that she misses Jim and that she’s upset no one came to her art show, because she’s trying to be more honest? I wish I could do something like that. I don’t like telling people how I’m really feeling. I usually avoid real emotional discussion at all costs. Sure, I’ll listen to other people telling me their feelings,, and I’ll offer advice if I have it, but I really, really don’t like to talk to anyone about how I’m feeling, except for maybe my mom and dad, and even then they usually have to ask me how I’m feeling before I’ll tell them anything. The reasons for this are probably lame but they are reasons.

First, weird, awful things happen when I tell people how I feel. I’ve started crying, which makes everyone including me feel uncomfortable because I don’t cry in public, ever. Really close friendships have drifted apart because nothing could be the same when we knew what we really felt about each other. I’ve gotten strange looks from friends, usually pity looks, that “poor child” look. I don’t like these things, and so I don’t like telling people what I really feel about them or how I feel about life in general.

Second, few people actually validate my feelings and let me know that it’s ok to feel that way. They tell me where my thought process is messed up or how the person whose actions made me feel this way is an evil, rotten person with no soul, so I really shouldn’t feel angry or sad because it’s all just a figment of my wild imagination. Why is it not ok to feel sad or angry and just be that way? Just let me feel what I’m feeling, please, and don’t try to tell me where I messed up, because odds are, I already know it and that’s part of the reason why I feel angry or sad!

Third, if I share my feelings, there’s always that person who interrupts me, saying “I understand,” and then tells me a lengthy story about a similar experience happened to them and how they emerged stronger and better. Now, for others, that might be helpful, but for me, that just lets me know that they would rather talk about themselves then listen to me. I get that they might have felt what I’m feeling in the past, but I’m feeling it now. It’s not that I’m dismissing their input or advice or wisdom, but when I tell people what I’m feeling, I just need someone to listen to me, someone to say, “I’m here for you. Keep talking,” then afterwards, ask me if I’d like to hear their story. That’s a much more gentle way to share the wisdom.

Fourth and finally, I don’t share my feelings because no one asks. Like I said before, I will only tell my parents how I’m feeling if they ask, and the same goes for everyone else. Mostly, it’s my fault that no one asks because I don’t give them reason to. I think I put on a pretty good show because I don’t want anyone to ask, acting like a intelligent, emotionless, asexual robot, especially in school where academics rule my life. Sure, I might get competitive or riled up over a game in Spanish class or happy or upset about a Calculus grade, but my personal life rarely makes it to the classroom. I put on my school face then take it off as soon as I get on the bus. The same goes for church and anywhere else I go in public. I’m sneaky too because it’s not just as simple as asking me how I am. If someone asks ‘”How are you?” I don’t often say how I’m feeling. If I ever respond with “I’m good,” “I’m ok,” or “I’m fine,” I’m definitely not either of those things emotionally but I am physically! Oh, clever me :P For me to tell someone how I’m feeling, they have to ask how I’m feeling, not just how I am. That way, if I don’t tell them how I am emotionally, I will be lying, and I hate lying.

After writing this, I see that I’m a ridiculously complicated person with ridiculous expectations, but then, I guess everyone is in a different way. So, just in case anyone’s been wondering all these years if I were really just an intelligent, emotionless, asexual robot, I’m not. I’m a teenage girl who feels things, feels a lot of things, and who’s moderately good at acting. Moral of the story: if you’re ever curious to know how I’m feeling, or what I really feel about you, then please ask me, please listen, please don’t judge me, and please don’t act weird afterwards. This is my Pam Beesly rant for today :)