lifelong siesta

This transition part sucks.

As a designer, I've been conditioned for 2.5 ridiculous years to take one thing that inspires me and distort it, change it, flip it, invert it, crop it, smooth it...INTERPRET it as many different ways as possible so that I can create for myself a huge array of garments from which I can pick out the 12-14 pieces that make up a collection.

I am conditioned to take an idea and run with it. Movement, adaptation, and growth. Very important.

So what's going on now is that with my newly graduated ass, I am ready to explore; ready to move, ready to search, ready to work, ready to act the adult part. But my parents are strapping me to the ground; threatening me with paying rent, car insurance, a lease on the car, health, cell phone, and internet. Because you've got to AFFORD to be an adult.

I never expected my parents to let me have the easy way out but GOD THIS SUCKS. As a parent, you should be nurturing and guiding and kind. Give the kid what they need to grow and remind them to thank you for what you have been given. It's like begging for water but being charged for it first. I feel like I am in prison. I am under a contract. I thought about driving to Roseville but I swear they'd call the cops on me for a stolen vehicle. I thought paying off my school loans for the next ten years was going to be my prison but no, it goes far beyond that.

All because they made a big deal out of me wanting to go to the bf's house for dinner. They say I don't spend enough time with my family (they ate and drank scotch around a full dinner table while the kids stayed upstairs). They say I don't need a relationship; that I should be focusing on my career--HELLO, its the fucking holiday and everything is closed. I just wanted one fucking day.

They also said that "it doesn't matter what good or bad things you do because in the Asian culture people are always going to talk" FUCK that. The more they bring up "Thai Society" or "Asian culture" or "you're not FULL American"...it just makes me want to punch a wall. First of all, the only way anything bad could have leaked was if they spread the news themselves. Second, I've done a shitload of fucking work, more work than any of my friends who attend respectable UC's so shutthefuckup. I've worked my ass off during MY Finals week and time and time again its the same kids that get the recognition for being pretty, speaking Thai, attending a UC, and generally sucking up to all the old people. I don't need the recognition, I just want the assholes who talk bad about me (if there are any like my parents say...) they should at least consider what I have done.

I am a people-pleaser. I work hard, I sweat, I hurt, I am well-presented, I'm there first, I'm the last to leave, I'm there 110%, I volunteer, I smile, I'll do the bitch-work. I suck it up, I'll gain your trust, I want you to rely on me. I'm 90% sure if you were to ask any of the the 30+ coworkers, volunteer coordinators and and other connections I've done work with...they'd have something good to say about me and my work. The other 10% involves the folks who probably don't remember me because I don't talk much. The only people who have a problem with me are my own parents.

I've hardly got my own life to live right now. It's just bills. My bedroom is the only sanctuary I've got. And then I get to see Killer for New Years Eve. After that he's back to Irvine and "I don't know when we'll see each other" he said. How tragic.

***

Also, I googled my name and found a blog that mentioned Rodney. I think he may have found the same info as myself, a band's website whose album was dedicated to him and another guy "whose lives were taken much too soon" but his blog finished off in a short sentence that Rodney killed himself.

Rodney's cause of death has always been veiled...to this day I'm still unsure of how it happened. I clearly remember my dad asking my uncle a few years after his passing about how it happened and he didn't give us an answer.

I've always thought of Rodney as being good enough; that whoever lives Upstairs and controls our lives' on/off switch thought he was awesome enough to get to move on to the next life. I knew he was crazy busy, stressed out, and probably lonely. Our age difference prevented me from ever getting to be his "go-to" person if he needed a friend or someone to complain to but I still wish over and over that he could have been mine.

I've got Killer. He's my safety net, and he's not going anywhere :)