Author's Note: I hate this show. But something made me write this: inspiration. Or procrastination, I'm still not sure which one.
I sit in the back of a crowded classroom and pretend to concentrate on the words as they escape the professor's mouth. He speaks, and I find myself unable to keep pace. The word "slow" pops into my head, and before I can force it away, it has settled into place on a billboard, there in bold, red letters for all the world to see.
Or, at least, everyone who lives in my brain can see it.
I've never entertained such a thought before: wondering about stupidity. I've never had the need, but more importantly, I've never had the time. I've always been busy. Too busy to think, too busy to care, too busy to feel. I was a giant swirl of emotions, fluttering about lifelessly yet inevitably headed towards some grand destination, focusing on my gifts instead of my failures, on my way to fulfilling all of that glittery potential.
He's discussing things that I could never hope to understand, and it hurts me now to see that. I've always had to work in school, but without trying too hard. There's a middle ground, a place exactly halfway between sheer genius and sheer idiocy, and I've always existed there, never worrying too much about true failure, but always remembering to push myself. To create an illusion of intelligence. To fake brains.
A toast to failure, now. Now that everything is sloppy. I always colored inside the lines. Never scribbled, never thought too much about any of it. But it's a sudden thing, the lack of caring. Except that that's not strictly true, because if it were true, I wouldn't care.
I care a lot.
I care that I hurt them, that I'm still hurting them even now because I'm letting these thoughts invade my mind instead of listening and my grades will surely show it, and how will they feel when they find out that not only am I dirty, dirty, and bad, I'm also stupid? They'll hate me. They'll hate me even more than they already hate me, and I'll have myself to blame.
Concentrate.
It hurts to realize that all of your life, everything you've ever thought, everything you've ever truly believed -- everything has been a lie. They've been spoon-feeding you lies, crunching them up and mixing them with your oatmeal in hopes that you'll never notice. It hurts that you never did notice. It hurts that you trusted them blindly because they're supposed to love you, and it hurts they've betrayed that trust.
And you have to wonder just how stupid one person can be.
How naïve, to believe the lies and accept them as truth and never, ever question your parents because Good Christians know that you're supposed to honor thy father and thy mother, not challenge them.
And how silly, to think that you're any more special than the other six billion or so people on this planet, that you're going somewhere great in life. How silly to believe that God has a plan for you.
How ridiculous it was for you to believe that everyone deserves love. Of course not everyone does. Of course you're going to fail.
An image flickers in my brain for the briefest of moments. A collage of lips and sweat and tossed articles of clothing and the briefest flash of bare skin. Hands, touching me. Mouth, tasting me. Body, needing me. Heart, wanting me. Self, loving me.
A girl with bright eyes and a wide smile meets a boy with the same. They converse. They relate. They fall. Although neither has any way of knowing it, they are on a path which will lead to her ruination.
Because leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief, but when you're living the gold, you don't think about that.
At the end there are shaken heads -- "You cannot fathom the extent of my disappointment." -- and hushed whispers -- "Did you hear about the Camden girl?" -- and stern lectures -- "I really thought we'd raised you to know better." And then there's the inevitable outcome.
I don't know what that will be. Not yet. Not enough time has passed. They're still thinking about it. What, oh what, will they ever do with me? Me, their delinquent daughter.
How am I supposed to look my parents in the eyes, when I know they can't think of anything but how dirty dirty dirty bad bad bad I am? I know what they think because I see it. I didn't act how I was supposed to act. I made a mistake, and I'm sorry, and what if they kick me out? What if they send me to Buffalo to get "better"? They've done it before, and now they're considering doing it again. With me, this time. They say "Buffalo" as though Buffalo's some sort of asylum, and the way they pronounce "better," it's obviously a euphemism for sane. Those tones -- oh, dear, the shame -- don't need elaboration. It's obvious that they fear for my soul.
One of their children? Oh, no, that's obviously a mistake. Not one of ours. We raised them to know better! She knows better. She's a good girl. She knows better. Well, she'll get better. We'll send her to Buffalo, and she'll get better. We'll send her to New York, you see, and New York, with its magical healing powers, shall cure her.
Because I met him, and I cared about him. I sinned. I begged for forgiveness, and I think that God knows how sorry I am. But my parents, my family, they don't know. They look at me with horror. They'll never forgive me, or if they do, they won't forget. It's one of those mistakes that never go away, no matter the extent of your repentance. It's an eternal stain on my skin.
I've been branded. I'm an evil person, you see. I'm bad. I'm not like them anymore. I've fallen from the moral high horse, and I'll never get back up there.
I find myself wishing for a time machine, and then I decide that I should simply create one, but then I recall my lack of genius, and it's all blown to you-know-where. Like it's been me all along.
I asked them once, when I was really little, I asked my father and mother, "Are you going to hate me forever?"
I had just told a lie. I'd eaten two cookies before dinner, because cookies always tasted better when you weren't supposed to be eating them, like the voice of Satan whispering in my ear. And when they'd asked if I'd eaten the cookies, I'd lied and said no. But they knew.
So I did what any self-respecting four-year-old would do. I cried and guilt-tripped them.
"Are you going to hate me forever?"
"No!" said my mother.
"Of course not," said my father. "No matter what you do, we'll love you. Maybe we won't love your actions, but we'll never stop loving you."
"You're our precious little girl," said my mother, and she kissed my nose. "But no more cookies before dinner."
There are lies, and there are lies. Mine was small, really. In the grand scheme of things, no one cares that I snuck two cookies fifteen years ago.
But they lied about everything. Unconditional love? Thanks for that. Thanks for being disappointed in me. I just want you to look at me that way again. The way you used to look at me, two days ago -- was it only two days? -- before I confessed my sin to you and you stared at me, mouths agape, for what felt like hours and then told me to get out of your sight because I disgusted you and didn't I know that what I'd done, that being intimate with someone who wasn't my husband, was so very, very wrong? Did I realize the position that this put you in?
And then there was everything that you didn't say. We'll never love you again, not like we used to love you. Things are different now.
You had s-e-x, you really did, and we can't continue loving you. We'll deal with you later.
I feel so distanced from my life. I'm watching everything happen, but that's not me. It can't be me. I'm not a slut. I'm going to wake up very soon. I promise.
He's still talking, and I still can't listen. It feels so unimportant, but it's really the most important thing in the world right now. It's really everything. I need to do well; I need to overachieve; I need to prove, once and for all, that I'm not quite so bad.
I need to show them that I care. That it was just one mistake, and it'll never happen again, and don't I get points for being honest?
They lied, and I've lied before, too, but I was honest about this, and that ought to mean something. It should make it better, even if only by the tiniest degree. It should show them that they can trust me.
It should show them that they can love me, still.
I never meant to hurt them, to ruin their reputation, to cause the formation of a secret society whose sole purpose is to gossip about us. That wasn't just me, you know. That started before me. It started because we're the Camdens and we're supposed to be better than other people, supposed to know better.
Sometimes I'm just human. Sometimes I'm just a stupid kid. Sometimes I don't know the right thing to do. Sometimes I know the right thing to do and do the wrong thing anyway because it feels like the right thing for a tiny second and that's enough to convince me that even if it's not exactly right maybe it's not exactly wrong either.
Sometimes I don't know how to make it better.
Dinner last night was had in silence. I caused it. I messed up. I'm sorry. I just want them to look at me with love and pride. I'll never have that again.
Are you going to hate me forever?
I sit in the back of a crowded classroom and pretend to concentrate on the words as they escape the professor's mouth. He speaks, and I find myself unable to keep pace. The word "slow" pops into my head, and before I can force it away, it has settled into place on a billboard, there in bold, red letters for all the world to see.
Or, at least, everyone who lives in my brain can see it.
I've never entertained such a thought before: wondering about stupidity. I've never had the need, but more importantly, I've never had the time. I've always been busy. Too busy to think, too busy to care, too busy to feel. I was a giant swirl of emotions, fluttering about lifelessly yet inevitably headed towards some grand destination, focusing on my gifts instead of my failures, on my way to fulfilling all of that glittery potential.
He's discussing things that I could never hope to understand, and it hurts me now to see that. I've always had to work in school, but without trying too hard. There's a middle ground, a place exactly halfway between sheer genius and sheer idiocy, and I've always existed there, never worrying too much about true failure, but always remembering to push myself. To create an illusion of intelligence. To fake brains.
A toast to failure, now. Now that everything is sloppy. I always colored inside the lines. Never scribbled, never thought too much about any of it. But it's a sudden thing, the lack of caring. Except that that's not strictly true, because if it were true, I wouldn't care.
I care a lot.
I care that I hurt them, that I'm still hurting them even now because I'm letting these thoughts invade my mind instead of listening and my grades will surely show it, and how will they feel when they find out that not only am I dirty, dirty, and bad, I'm also stupid? They'll hate me. They'll hate me even more than they already hate me, and I'll have myself to blame.
Concentrate.
It hurts to realize that all of your life, everything you've ever thought, everything you've ever truly believed -- everything has been a lie. They've been spoon-feeding you lies, crunching them up and mixing them with your oatmeal in hopes that you'll never notice. It hurts that you never did notice. It hurts that you trusted them blindly because they're supposed to love you, and it hurts they've betrayed that trust.
And you have to wonder just how stupid one person can be.
How naïve, to believe the lies and accept them as truth and never, ever question your parents because Good Christians know that you're supposed to honor thy father and thy mother, not challenge them.
And how silly, to think that you're any more special than the other six billion or so people on this planet, that you're going somewhere great in life. How silly to believe that God has a plan for you.
How ridiculous it was for you to believe that everyone deserves love. Of course not everyone does. Of course you're going to fail.
An image flickers in my brain for the briefest of moments. A collage of lips and sweat and tossed articles of clothing and the briefest flash of bare skin. Hands, touching me. Mouth, tasting me. Body, needing me. Heart, wanting me. Self, loving me.
A girl with bright eyes and a wide smile meets a boy with the same. They converse. They relate. They fall. Although neither has any way of knowing it, they are on a path which will lead to her ruination.
Because leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief, but when you're living the gold, you don't think about that.
At the end there are shaken heads -- "You cannot fathom the extent of my disappointment." -- and hushed whispers -- "Did you hear about the Camden girl?" -- and stern lectures -- "I really thought we'd raised you to know better." And then there's the inevitable outcome.
I don't know what that will be. Not yet. Not enough time has passed. They're still thinking about it. What, oh what, will they ever do with me? Me, their delinquent daughter.
How am I supposed to look my parents in the eyes, when I know they can't think of anything but how dirty dirty dirty bad bad bad I am? I know what they think because I see it. I didn't act how I was supposed to act. I made a mistake, and I'm sorry, and what if they kick me out? What if they send me to Buffalo to get "better"? They've done it before, and now they're considering doing it again. With me, this time. They say "Buffalo" as though Buffalo's some sort of asylum, and the way they pronounce "better," it's obviously a euphemism for sane. Those tones -- oh, dear, the shame -- don't need elaboration. It's obvious that they fear for my soul.
One of their children? Oh, no, that's obviously a mistake. Not one of ours. We raised them to know better! She knows better. She's a good girl. She knows better. Well, she'll get better. We'll send her to Buffalo, and she'll get better. We'll send her to New York, you see, and New York, with its magical healing powers, shall cure her.
Because I met him, and I cared about him. I sinned. I begged for forgiveness, and I think that God knows how sorry I am. But my parents, my family, they don't know. They look at me with horror. They'll never forgive me, or if they do, they won't forget. It's one of those mistakes that never go away, no matter the extent of your repentance. It's an eternal stain on my skin.
I've been branded. I'm an evil person, you see. I'm bad. I'm not like them anymore. I've fallen from the moral high horse, and I'll never get back up there.
I find myself wishing for a time machine, and then I decide that I should simply create one, but then I recall my lack of genius, and it's all blown to you-know-where. Like it's been me all along.
I asked them once, when I was really little, I asked my father and mother, "Are you going to hate me forever?"
I had just told a lie. I'd eaten two cookies before dinner, because cookies always tasted better when you weren't supposed to be eating them, like the voice of Satan whispering in my ear. And when they'd asked if I'd eaten the cookies, I'd lied and said no. But they knew.
So I did what any self-respecting four-year-old would do. I cried and guilt-tripped them.
"Are you going to hate me forever?"
"No!" said my mother.
"Of course not," said my father. "No matter what you do, we'll love you. Maybe we won't love your actions, but we'll never stop loving you."
"You're our precious little girl," said my mother, and she kissed my nose. "But no more cookies before dinner."
There are lies, and there are lies. Mine was small, really. In the grand scheme of things, no one cares that I snuck two cookies fifteen years ago.
But they lied about everything. Unconditional love? Thanks for that. Thanks for being disappointed in me. I just want you to look at me that way again. The way you used to look at me, two days ago -- was it only two days? -- before I confessed my sin to you and you stared at me, mouths agape, for what felt like hours and then told me to get out of your sight because I disgusted you and didn't I know that what I'd done, that being intimate with someone who wasn't my husband, was so very, very wrong? Did I realize the position that this put you in?
And then there was everything that you didn't say. We'll never love you again, not like we used to love you. Things are different now.
You had s-e-x, you really did, and we can't continue loving you. We'll deal with you later.
I feel so distanced from my life. I'm watching everything happen, but that's not me. It can't be me. I'm not a slut. I'm going to wake up very soon. I promise.
He's still talking, and I still can't listen. It feels so unimportant, but it's really the most important thing in the world right now. It's really everything. I need to do well; I need to overachieve; I need to prove, once and for all, that I'm not quite so bad.
I need to show them that I care. That it was just one mistake, and it'll never happen again, and don't I get points for being honest?
They lied, and I've lied before, too, but I was honest about this, and that ought to mean something. It should make it better, even if only by the tiniest degree. It should show them that they can trust me.
It should show them that they can love me, still.
I never meant to hurt them, to ruin their reputation, to cause the formation of a secret society whose sole purpose is to gossip about us. That wasn't just me, you know. That started before me. It started because we're the Camdens and we're supposed to be better than other people, supposed to know better.
Sometimes I'm just human. Sometimes I'm just a stupid kid. Sometimes I don't know the right thing to do. Sometimes I know the right thing to do and do the wrong thing anyway because it feels like the right thing for a tiny second and that's enough to convince me that even if it's not exactly right maybe it's not exactly wrong either.
Sometimes I don't know how to make it better.
Dinner last night was had in silence. I caused it. I messed up. I'm sorry. I just want them to look at me with love and pride. I'll never have that again.
Are you going to hate me forever?