Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

Yesterday was a memorable day.

It all began with a big snowstorm. I was delighted when I awoke to a snowy landscape and a coolness outside of my bed. I actually woke up around 5 a.m. and just enjoyed my morning. I watched some TV and played on my iPhone before getting ready to leave.

On his way to pick me up for work, Mike called to tell me that he had gone to the dry cleaner to drop off some clothes. While on the phone with him he starting yelling “FUCK! FUCK!” and then I could hear his daughter screaming in the background (we take her to school three days a week). Then he told me he had to go and hung up. Sure enough he got into an accident into the parking lot when he couldn’t stop his car from hitting a car that was pulling out of it’s parking space. Did I say car? I meant a huge freaking truck, which suffered no damage. Mike’s car on the other hand has direct damage to the hood and front bumper. Nothing too serious, but it will need some work nonetheless. The day did not start off so good.

Driving in was incredibly stressful to say the least, but we got Erica to school safely and somehow on time.

I had a whole slew of meetings scheduled that ended up being canceled for one reason or another. So I got to stay on campus all day, which was a nice thing. I ended up watching “Becoming Jane” while working. What a fantastic movie. It’s the story of Jane Austen, and although her life in some ways mimicked that of her most beloved character Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, it didn’t have the same happy outcome. Jane never did marry, and according to the movie she at one point tried to run away with her forbidden love but stopped. At the start of their journey she realized that he would lose everything by doing this and that the family he supported back home would lose his allowance when his eccentric uncle would immediately cut him off since he disapproved of this match so much. Realizing this, she did the right thing and let him go. He was heart broken, but she knew that it was the best thing to do. Real life doesn’t always have the happy ending. So instead she gave her characters everything they really wanted in her tales. In the movie she tells a former suitor her plan for her characters, “My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.” To which he later replied “the good do not always come to good ends. It is a truth universally acknowledged.” Meaning that in reality a good person doesn’t always get their happy ending.

She also knew that the imagination is a very powerful thing and that the imagination is almost enough to replace the real thing if exercised properly. I could relate to that quite well. Like I said, it was a beautiful movie and really enjoyable to watch.

After work Mike and I went to Borders. I had decided that I wasn’t going to wait anymore to read Breaking Dawn. Well, more like I wasn’t going to wait anymore to have it. I was still hesitant to pick it up and read it, but I at least wanted to have it in my possession. When we entered Borders there was an author there promoting her book The Trouble with the Alphabet. Her husband approached Mike and I to talk to us about the book. We met the author and talked at great length about her book. The premise of her book is about troubled countries around the world and the human rights of children. For each letter there is a country that she describes with a portrait of a child along with information about how to help. It is a beautiful big book and her artwork is fantastic. The letter her husband happened to flip to was L, which was for Lebanon. I told them that I was Lebanese and intrigued by all this. Well after learning about it, I had to buy it. It was most definitely random, but over all very rewarding.

I felt almost childish and stupid picking up Breaking Dawn after the conversation I had just had. It was like going from a vegan restaurant right to a greasy fast food joint. I shook off the strange guilt I was feeling and just accepted the fact that this series of books is a once in a lifetime kind of thing that makes life fun and provides a beautiful place for my imagination to wander off to.

War and hunger and devastation is sometimes too overwhelming for me to think about. I’ve struggled in the past with carrying the weight of the world’s problems on my shoulders. For a time I believed that I deserved no sense of happiness when the world around my protective bubble (or shall I say border) suffered. I was afraid that I could never really enjoy all of my gifts and luck for living in this great country because the guilt would overwhelm me. I was afraid that I would spend everyday wishing I could do more and basically never really feeling like I deserved anything that was provided to me. Why me? How did I get so lucky to be born here, to grow up wealthy, to be so loved and protected and well fed?

This began when I was 18 years old and I had hard time shaking it off for the next three years. There was even a point when I seriously considered becoming a nun back then. Seriously. I don’t tell a lot of people that. Sadly for all that worry and all that trouble, I never really did anything about it. Sure, I was concerned about issues. I was in Amnesty International for a short bit, and thought a lot about it. But I never really made a difference.

My grandfather who I was very close with died and I pushed all of that grief down. I felt I had no right to it. Then an acquaintance of mine died a year later. I had gone through confirmation with her at my church. She had cystic fibrosis. Getting confirmed was very important to her, because I think she knew that she wasn’t meant to live much longer. When she died, my priest called to tell me about it and suggested that we go together to the funeral that was at a different church. I didn’t react and I didn’t go with him. I pushed it further down, trying to make room for it like one does with a trash can full of trash. I was full of feelings that I had been ignoring for two years. All because I didn’t feel worthy of feeling. How stupid. I can clearly see now it was all an excuse. An excuse to avoid my problems and an excuse not to feel because I was afraid.

I had, as Mike calls it, my “QE2″ moment. He calls me QE2 because of the movie “The Queen.” The moment is when Queen Elizabeth, a very stoic and collected woman, finally breaks down and cries over the sight of a beautiful stag while stranded in the countryside. It doesn’t last long, but it’s always there below the surface for her and for me alike. He thinks I’m just like her.

When it reached it’s boiling point, I somehow got over whatever sense of martyrdom I had apparently picked up and just got over it. I grew up and accepted this gift and my destiny. I began to feel and feel and feel. And I took advantage of life’s guilty pleasures.

So I realized that I couldn’t sink back into that philosophy again. And then the thought occurred to me that maybe these children in desperate countries need their own version of Twilight. Maybe that’s what would make them happy. A grand distraction and a way to escape their troubles. Their own guilty pleasure, without the guilt.

I went home happy after Borders and got in my bed so I could warm up a bit. I started reading. And then stopped a few chapters in. I went downstairs to have a bowl of cereal and watch TV. I ended up watching “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2,” which I had rented. That was highly enjoyable, bur right there in the middle of it I picked up my phone and called my mom.

It was something that I needed to do obviously. I had called my mom on Thanksgiving and left her a message to wish her a happy holiday and tell her that I loved her. She and I were still in a very delicate place. So then she called me back and left a similar message. A week passed and yesterday she called my work phone. I sat here paralyzed staring at the number on my display. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to her, I just didn’t know how to talk to her. She’s a complex person. I avoided the red light on my phone all day and it wasn’t until we were driving home that I told Mike about it. He told me to listen to it on speaker so we both could hear it. That helped me get the courage to do it. So I did it and it was actually just a nice message saying hi.

So like I said before, just in a bizarre instant last night I picked up the phone and called her. I didn’t put any thought into whatsoever. She answered and then we talked. We actually avoided most discussion surrounding our fight, which led me to believe that she had a lot of regrets about it too. Otherwise, she would drive an apology out of me and make me feel bad. So we kept it kind of light. She told me in great detail about the explosion that happened near her store and then about her friend who died days later behind her store when the truck he was working on collapsed on his chest. She’s had a bad month to say the least. I told her about what I’ve been up to and that was that. We’re back on good terms apparently. It’s a relief. My sister and her have also made up, so that’s good. I’m not sure about my brother.

So after the chat I went back to watching my movie. It was a nice movie and I’m glad they made a sequel. I had read the second book, but the movie didn’t really match that. It had some elements of it, but it seemed more a collection of all the books into one nice story. It was already 11:15 or so when it ended. I went up stairs and read more of Breaking Dawn. I’m trying to really enjoy it and read it slowly. It only has 750 pages. Before I knew it, I had read 135 pages. It just moves too fast. I shut that down at like 12:15 and went to sleep. I ended up sleeping so well that I didn’t move all night long. I woke six hours later in the same position and felt completely rested and chipper.

I don’t know why I’ve gone into so much detail about my day, but it all seemed significant for some reason. I’m very aware of the present these days. I sort of feel like I have no future. I don’t mean that in an ominous way, just that I don’t really have any plans and so I’m intrigued with what each day brings. As great as I’m feeling right now, my evening is a total mystery.

On the weight loss note, I have met my first goal of 2% (3% to be exact), so that means I get a hair cut. Hooray!