Sometimes, things are timed SO perfectly it's amazing...
Six months ago -- and 12 days, but nobody's counting -- I made my New Year's Resolution. Well, I made many of them, actually. Some of them I kept, some of them I didn't. But the only ones I wrote down were written on a postcard and tied to a display downtown. It was this wonderful cardboard thing where everybody in town could hang their resolutions, and six months later, they would be mailed back to the people who wrote them.
My resolution was to grow the hell up a little bit. Not to stop being a kid, not to lose touch with the part of myself that plays in thunderstorms in a bathing suit in the backyard (my mom still does this at 45, and I think it's wonderful), but to stop being an irritating kid, always needing somebody to tell me, "don't do that, Helena." I wanted to be an adult, to be treated like an adult. More specifically, I wanted to DESERVE to be treated like an adult.
I want to deserve love more than I want to be loved. I want to KNOW I am a good person more than I want to be told it. I want people to see good things about me, but I want those things to be REAL and not faked. Being pretty, or lovable, or intelligent, or mature, are all qualities that CAN be faked. And if you're a good enough faker, people will commend you for it. And I have been a very good faker. I wanted to grow up. Not just to be treated like an adult, but to FEEL like I honestly AM one.
People have always told me I'm mature for my age. But there are things people never really knew about me. Like, stealing quarters out of cash registers, (just quarters, mind you...), or waiting until my dad was out of town before inviting somebody to spend the night with me... Things like waiting until the very last minute to do a paper for school, skipping work to do it, getting an A, and telling the professor I'd worked for three weeks on it. Making promises and not exactly keeping them. Picking petals off the flowers in Java Joe's. Making dinner dates with people and hoping they pay. Things like that.
I wanted to grow up. It wasn't just a wish for people to stop CATCHING me doing stupid shit, but a sincere effort to stop actually DOING stupid shit. To grow up.
And I wanted to be happy. To stop crying myself to sleep. To stop letting Peter pick on me. To stop letting other people pick on me. To stop feeling hurt when somebody would look at me cross-eyed. To stop blowing up at people because I was hurt. To stop looking at the world like it was out to get me. To look at the world as if the sun was always shining and the apocalypse really doesn't have to happen yet.
Of course, I didn't say all of that on my postcard. I sort of abbreviated. I abbreviated in such a way that only a few people would have understood. And then I hung my postcard up directly next to Bobbi's. Bobbi's resolutions were something about cleansing herself of demons. Very few people would have understood hers, either, but I did. And she would have understood mine, too.
Mine said: "My resolution is: to be more freakin' positive about things, and never give the Java Crew reason to throw me out, ever again..."
(Speaking of Bobbi, the last time I saw her, she asked me if I'd joined the Elite Club, to which I flipped her off and walked away... Maybe someday I'll explain that, but let's just say she hit the one fucken nerve that NOBODY gets away with hitting... So at the moment, I really don't have any intention of being nice to Bobbi, and I hope her demons give her anemia as they're sucking the blood out of her neck...)
"...To be more freakin' positive about things and never give the Java Crew reason to throw me out, ever again..."
I think I've kept my resolutions very well.
As a matter of fact, I got a raise today from Java Joe's because the owners felt I was doing a good job. I don't think they're going to need to throw me out anytime soon.
I really have given my heart and soul to that place. Well... a good portion of my heart and soul... Today I successfully served a good thirty people -- pretty much all at once -- with only two people working with me. And you know, all I wanted to do in the whole world was to make espresso drinks with pretty layers. Not an inch of me yearned to be outside doodling pictures of the tattoo I'm going to get someday, or working on the ever-growing "who we've slept with" chart with the Java Kids... (As a matter of fact, I don't plan on ever working on that thing again with ANYBODY... It freaks me out...)
I got a raise today. I think I deserved it. I never would have asked for it, of course, or expected it, but I do think I've been working hard, and I am damned proud of myself.
I think I've grown up a lot. Maybe not as much as I want to be, but enough so that I feel accomplished. Enough so that when the card came in the mail today, silently asking, "so, Helena, how badly have you fucked up your resolutions?" I smiled instead of thinking, "well, hell."
There is one thing left I have to do... Something I need to rectify from one time when I did a stupid thing and left a mess behind... I'll explain THAT after I clean up the very last of the rubble... I think THEN I'll have fulfilled my resolution to my complete satisfaction...
Love,
~Helena*
"So old friends, now it's time to start growing up. Taking charge, seeing things as they are... Facing facts, not escaping them; still with dreams, just reshaping them. Growing up..." --from "Merrily We Roll Along" (and yes, this WAS the cheesiest quote I could have found...)