Being Vulnerable

I think it says something about me that someone who I haven't talked to in months still affects me.

Notice I didn't say it said something good about me.  Because it most certainly doesn't do that.

I'm not sure why, but I've always had this inability to forget past wrongs.  It's terrible, yes, and impractical, but it's who I am.  And there are some wrongs that I'm sure everyone else that knew about them have forgotten but I haven't.

No, I don't still have feelings.  That's what some people ask me, what others think.  No, I don't want the past back.

The past hurt. Way more than it should have, for way longer than it should have.  It still hurts.  I'm still thinking of ways to torture, ways to jab and test and hurt the others around me for the things they've done, or things that I think they've done to me.

Yet, every time I think of these things, I ask myself this really scary question:

What if the pain was all in my imagination, just so I could have something more than what I had?

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, or if anyone will see it.  I hope no one does see it, at least not anytime soon.  This is for me to sort out, but it's exciting writing your vulnerabilities, your weaknesses, somewhere the world can see them.  Maybe it's not a good exciting.

Anyway, I've got these ideas I'll never act on, and these lines I'll never say, and sometimes it gets too cluttered up there with every little thing I think I should have done, that I forget I really shouldn't do the things I want to do.

Yeah, it's quite the paradox.

Quotes!

Sometimes, these small sentences pop in my head, and I can't think of a story or larger picture to go along with it. This really frustrates me, because I always forget the quotes and then no one else gets to hear them. So, I'm going to start writing them on this blog post, and anyone can comment and tell me what they think. Hopefully, this will steadily gain more and more sentences, and then one day I'll be able to look back, find a couple, and make a full story.

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1. "Broken hearts drown out the broken morals of what love really is."

2. "There was a pang in my chest the first time I really looked at him. That's how I knew we were soul mates–he was already breaking my heart."

3. "You didn't see my vulnerabilities because you never looked at me long enough to find them."

4. "I think I was a mobster in a past life. All this code, all this loyalty, and all it amounts to are a couple of friends and a city of enemies."

5. "This is what it must feel like to burn at the stake."

6. "I wonder, sometimes, if I'm alone in this fight. I look around, and all I see are warriors walking stoically to their doom."

7.  "I'm sick of listening to a song and being hit by all these terrible memories of you.  I'm sick of feeling like what we had has been dulled by years and, at the same time, hating you as if it all happened yesterday."

So Much Anger!

There is nothing like being so angry you're unable to turn away from something.

You literally feel yourself getting angrier and angrier, yet you have no intention of stopping it, of saving yourself. Yeah, that'd be me right now.

I wish you could see this, but you'll never look or care so I'll just yell into the vast expanse that is the Internet. You know who you are, you know why I hate you.

And in case you're so self-absorbed as to not know, it's because you're a selfish, self-absorbed asshole that used me and then decided to come out looking like the victim.

Just because I'm stronger than you, doesn't mean I had less pain. It certainly doesn't mean you inflicted less pain. You did your damage, I just had the balls to stand back up when all you did was whine and fall.

How dare you flaunt messages like "Just remember, I gave a fuck when no one else did" when I was the one who gave a fuck when no one else did.


You forgot so quickly how good I was to you, and how bad you were to me, and I'm sick of pretending otherwise. You hurt me. You hurt me so bad, yet still I was there for you. You would have abandoned me  if I had ever come to you with problems, so I had no problems. You would have abandoned me if I had ever told you what I really thought of what you said, so I didn't tell you. And when, finally, I came to my senses and had enough of your utter bullshit, you got to scream and cry foul.

This is me crying foul. How dare you do what you did and come out completely unscathed. How dare you.

Kind of a Writing Adventure Notice

I have opened a very large black hole with this new project I'm working on.

It sucks up my time. And I'm not really counting that as a bad thing, but I do have some concerns.

I'm now, once again, obsessed with the character of Amanirenas. I mean, who wouldn't? She was a queen, and a damn good one at that (I think you pretty much have to be if you're defeating the Roman Army right after they took over Egypt). So, because of my obsession resurfacing, I decided I would let the cat out of the bag (only a small cat, maybe a kitten) and tell everyone some stuff about what I'm doing.

There are some conflicting ideas out there about Amanirenas. Some sources say that her husband ruled first and she took over once he died, but many others say the opposite: she was the true ruler of Kush. Because, in my opinion, it would make a better story, I'm siding with the latter, and saying she was ruler the whole time.

In every source, it is stated that she was married to Teriteqas. From what I can assume in the text (now this is a leap), Teriteqas loved her very much, and commissioned a palace to be built for her.

**interesting story alert: This palace is where Amanirenas buries the head of Augustus' statue, so that she may step on it and essentially curse him with every footstep.**

Teriteqas, unfortunately, died in the war with the Romans.

They had a son named Akinidad, who was crown prince before he also died in war. This, coupled with losing an eye in battle, must have left a hole in her heart. Some believe she and her husband also had another son, but that he was skipped over in the monarchy for some reason. There's not much evidence, so I'm not sure if adding it in there would make the story worse or better, considering I don't even have a name. I'll probably leave that stuff out.

Anyway, I'm thinking my story will start with Amanirenas on her death bed, about ten years after the end of the war (another tragedy in her life, they're not really sure what happened to her, only that she died young and roughly ten years after negotiating peace with the Romans). She will be talking to who she has chosen as a successor, and they will ask her about her experience as a queen. The rest of the story will be a flash-back in first person, starting with the day her father died and left the throne to her.

Now for personalities. From the decisions she made, I've inferred that Amanirenas was a bold and headstrong character. Though she can be stoic and reserved, she's very courageous and aggressive. But, above all else, she is a tremendous queen. She lives and dies for her people, and that's her defining character trait: her sense of purpose as a ruler. It's not that she believes Kush could not survive without her, it's that she wants them to thrive with her, which is why (I believe) she resisted the Romans so violently, even when she knew how outnumbered she was.

Teriteqas, on the other hand, seems calmer to me, so that's how I've been writing him. In my story, he and Amanirenas have known each other since birth, and they are very drawn towards one another. He balances her aggression out with a very quiet strength, and I think later in her life she will adopt these tendencies. It's obvious from the beginning they love each other, and he is very much the soldier and confidante she needs. For her, he would kill a thousand men, but if it's for any other reason he is the non-violent one.

Akinidad is very young when he dies–only fourteen– so he won't have much character development. I think the best route is to play him as a normal fourteen year old. He is a prince, and so he doesn't feel the weight of power, but he is still forced into a situation for warriors much more experienced than he. He is a lighter character, like his father, but unique in a sense that he does not fit a comforting or compassionate capacity.

So, I'll leave you all with a confession: sometimes, when it's very late at night, and I've been thinking about this stuff for a while, I think that maybe I'm her reincarnated, and that's how I'm so sure of what she felt and what happened.

Now, I don't really believe in any of that stuff, but the thought crosses my mind anyway, and wouldn't it be so cool if that were the case?

NEW CAR!!

I am the proud owner of a dark gray Kia Soul.

I named it Bruce, after Bruce Wayne aka: BATMAN!!!!!

I didn't name my car Batman because, while Batman is a badass, my car is not full on dark knight.

My car is sophisticated, and refined, and a bit mysterious (I'm still figuring out how the bluetooth works). My car is also damn sexy-fine, because you can't just use a regular word like "sexy." You must make one up. Bruce Wayne is all of these things, whereas Batman is scary, and scary, and a little bit scary.

Bruce is also adorable when he wants to be, and all the ladies want to get with him. So, there's my thought process.

(Not really. I just kind of yelled "Oh my God I'll name it Bruce!" and that was that.)

Oh man, I have a car!

Progress

I just sent my "short story" (I put it in quotations because I'm not so sure if 1,300 words counts as a story at all) A Good Time to two writing competitions.

Wow.

I am completely aware that I have a one in a million chance of winning (especially because the main character is a hooker) but still, the fact that I've finally accomplished something makes me really happy.

Something Terrible that I do

So, there's something that I do to people I'm not particularly fond of.

I lurk THE CRAP out of them on Facebook.

Also, don't even try to pretend that I'm alone in this act. I am most certainly not, because I've seen it done by others.

Sometimes, I'm ashamed of this. How is it that I can be such a terrible person as to seek out something I don't like, just to think about how much I don't like it?

Other times, I take one look at their wall, or their profile picture, or even their comments on someone else's wall, and I don't think that way at all. What I think is, how is it that they can be such terrible people as to market themselves as someone totally different than what they are?

Now I know that I just marketed myself as being a disgusting teenager with too much time on their hands. I know that anyone reading this will think less of me. 

I also know that I'm no different from most of the people I know. We are all terrible human beings, we all cut down our own kind for sport. Maybe that levels the playing field to make us all good people too, or maybe that's just where it ends.

Either way, terrible or not, I do it, along with other terrible or not so terrible things. And, at some point, so have you.