Coming to Panera at 1 pm on a Saturday.
Mistake city. Population: Me (and every other citizen of Amherst and Hadley MA).
23 Saturday Oct 2010
Posted Uncategorized
inComing to Panera at 1 pm on a Saturday.
Mistake city. Population: Me (and every other citizen of Amherst and Hadley MA).
13 Wednesday Oct 2010
Posted Uncategorized
inAn excerpt from one of my most very favorite blogs nothingbutbonfires.com
“one night, I wake up at 3am in so much pain, that I am convinced I’m going to die. I sit up in bed and I get the phone and I dial my parents’ home number in Singapore and I think I give up. I am twenty-two and I am living alone in London and all I want at that very moment is my mother, and my mother says do you need me to come? do you want me to get on a plane? and I know I should say no, it’s too far, it’s too much money, it’s a 14-hour flight, but I can’t say no because all I want is someone to let me surrender, and so I surrender and I say yes.
Eventually, months later—after my exams are over, after I’ve stood in front of the bulletin board in the English department, bursting with joy over my First—I will see a doctor (a dentist, ironically) who diagnoses me with a chronic TMJ disorder, but no-one knows this yet, so for now my pain is just unnamed and insurmountable. Not even twenty-four hours after calling my mother in Singapore, I open the door of my apartment in London, and there she is, jetlagged and smiling and smelling of home, and all I can feel is the purest, deepest, most wonderful sense of relief.”
And by the time I finish reading that excerpt I’m crying. Because I can’t do that. I don’t have that. Because your mom can’t come save you when you feel like you can’t go on when she’s in a wheel chair in a nursing home.
And I think thats why, even though I want absolutely nothing more than to move to Chicago the second I graduate, I’m terrified. Because what if I wake up in the middle of the night and I feel like I’m going to die? And the only person I know in the whole city is the Professor. And I don’t want him to have to be my mother on top of it all. Which is a weird sentence to write. I’m afraid to depend on him for everything. He’s already my cheerleader, my therapist, and my boyfriend. And what if I lean on him too hard and we fall off a cliff?
And even though my mother and I haven’t gotten along for a long. long. long. time. I miss the security of knowing she was there for me. And she was. Before she got sick she was a great mother in that way. She was very concerned about me and my well being and me being happy.
And in high school when she was sick and I did everything times three I saw this loss of a mother as something that would better me. Something that would make me more mature. And I almost sorta kinda felt cool. Like the kids from Party of Five.
And I should have mourned it then. But I didn’t. I didn’t think about what it meant that she was sick and getting sicker and always will be forever.
And I keep power walking away from it (because I never run) and it just keeps catching up with me.
And I hate it.
05 Tuesday Oct 2010
Posted Uncategorized
inHello there.
Do you see me? Watching television after a very long day?
Do you use your powers of deduction to see that I am watching a serialized drama.
A show that requires attention be paid to it?
I deduce that you must be oblivious to all of this. As you sit here, yammering away. Loudly.
Thanks again!
Love Sarah
01 Friday Oct 2010
Posted Uncategorized
inI had to read Chekov’s the Cherry Orchard for my Modern Rep class this week.
And I wasn’t too entirely excited about it. Mostly because when it comes to plays I like the current stuff. The Prof would likely chalk this up to be not being well read but I have to disagree. I know my taste and it likes the contemporary stuff wayyyy more.
Anyway spoiler alert if you’ve been saving the Cherry Orchard on the reading list because I’m about to spoil the ending for you, oh two loyal readers.
So at the beginning of the play this aristocratic woman comes home to her giant estate in Russia, which is duh, on a cherry orchard. And she is immediately informed that because she hasn’t kept up with the mortgage payments that the orchard is going to be sold in August, and its already May. “But don’t worry!” says the guy, “I have a plan to fix it! We’ll parcel out the land on the orchard and sell it and then you’ll have more than enough money to pay!”
Yet stupid aristocratic woman whose Russian name is to hard to type sits around twiddling her thumbs because she doesn’t want to sell the Orchard. She also doesn’t want to leave the Orchard. HMMMM WHAT A TOUGH ONE! On top of all this mess she is constantly spending and lending out money she doesn’t have. She lives in a fantasy world where this problem doesn’t exist.
And I know its not the point, but the whole time I was going “JUST SELL THE DAMN ORCHARD AND KEEP YOUR MANSION FOR YOUR FUCKING FAMILY AHHHHHHHH YOU’RE KILLING MEEEE”
And OF COURSE she never sells the damn orchard. And they lose it. To the guy who was telling them to sell it in the first place. Who was the grandson of a fucking serf on the estate. And Russian lady is all bummed out and I have NO sympathy.
Because this is EXACTLY what happened with my mother last year.
My mother knew her illness had progressed too far for her to stay at home. But she didn’t want to do anything about it.
Actually this is how my mom conducted herself the entire time she’s been sick.
She was diagnosed and she immediately gave in.
She didn’t go to physical therapy. She didn’t take her medicines on time. She let herself succumb to depression. She abused the pills she was prescribed by her shrink. Instead of doing things for herself while she still good to improve and strengthen muscle function she had my brother and I wait on her hand and foot.
We told her “You have to move into a facility. You can do it sooner rather than later, everything can be organized and it’ll be great.” But instead she waited.
YEARS.
She waited until the situation was so dire we had to force her into a facility (which was just great for everyone involved) She’s in a wheelchair in a nursing home and she’s unhappy. SURPRISE!
Mother. We warned you about all of this. But you were selfish. As you have been since I was 13 years old and you got diagnosed with a disease which while terrible, is not a death sentence.
And now I have to start the process of taking over her power of attorney. And my brother and I have to sell the house. And because everything was so last minute with her move to the nursing home the house is in a complete state of disarray and I feel it like a ball and chain tied around my ankle.
Try and graduate and start yourself a life Sarah! Just try! But first clean out and sell this giant house and take over all of your mothers financial legal and medical affairs!!
And as we discussed the Cherry Orchard in class today people felt such sympathy for the Mother. And yes, it is only human to be nostalgic. To want to cling on to your past.
God knows I do it all the time. ALLLLL THE TIME.
But nobody wondered what would happen to the children. Who could no longer live in home they grew up in anymore. For the Butler who had devoted his entire life to the family and the estate, who DIED in the front hall after the family had left him behind by accident. Because when you are selfish and delusional you not only hurt yourself but you hurt your loved ones too.
And if I ever become a mother I swear that no matter what happens I will do everything in my power to sacrifice whatever it takes for my children. I will never be their burden.