Jane Austen and a hair brush

I have finally gotten around to cleaning my house when I had the inkling to pop open a jane austen movie and enjoy what bits of freedom I have to do art again and write.

I have not been able to do what I've wanted to do artistically in quite a while and art school is quickly coming to an end.
A long journey of sobbing, learning more and more about my talents and pushing myself harder mentally and physically than I ever have before.

The days where I have to focus on school and read all day helps me breathe.
I can finally relax into my bed and sleep. Counting dreams one by twos and not explaining myself.
not explaining why I can be so emotional on AND offline.
Of keeping the peace and then causing an emotional riot.
I will never regret speaking my mind in that course of action, because it wasn't to cause people pain but free myself from what I endured as a teenager that seems to continue to haunt me into adult hood.

eitherway, I am one rounded out female. I have my shit together mind you;
An apartment, a Job, career focus and a happy black cat who stares at anyone who comes by.

"Your tongue is sharper than a guillotine." - Mansfield Park.

First Year of College Essay

Rabecca Rocha

Writing 101
Essay 1

I heard their voices that night, the both of them like angry chickens pecking at one another, a ruffle of sheets like that of feathers angry shouting and flustered tones. My Father's voice rumbled distinctively like a cumulus cloud building, electrodes gathering and ready to strike. The irritation in the voice of my mother only kept me situated behind the door, my ear pressed to it aching to know what was wrong. I couldn't fathom the thought of them being so angry at one another. I held my pillow in hopes that this in fact was a nightmare however I would soon find out that I was living in it. All the anxiety and tension in the house would eventually turn between me and my own mother. 

In another instance the door for their bedroom swung open and my Father’s heavy foot steps creaked across the carpet floor. The front door slammed and I knew from then on this would only set the stage for the events that were about to unfold during the oncoming years. Nothing could explain the tension in that tiny blue house but it only seemed to accumulate with time. During their arguments I had done my best to protect my brother by turning the TV up, taking him to the park and anywhere but home. It only began from there soon after I began to try to find something that might repair what was left of my parent’s marriage.

I didn’t realize how soon my mother’s problems would then be focused on me. I was the Daddy’s girl and I had become the blame. So from then on I would attempt to do everything I could to make sure that we would find peace in our little home. This had been more complicated then I had initially interpreted it to be, for that year my father had been taken to the hospital due to kidney failure. My grandmother had to work to pay the bills, as did my mother however Being that my mother was gone numerous amounts of times this was no easy task, so I was given the duty of watching over my 10 year old autistic brother. At that time I didn't know how to cook so I had to try to make up ways in order to be able to feed my brother and myself. Sometimes if my Mother did come home with food she'd only feed me and not my little brother and tell me not to tell “snitch.” And by snitching she meant telling my grandmother. This amount of guilt on continued yet I kept this secret to myself.

That Christmas was a lonely little one, without daddy who would cheer us on?

My father had always took it upon himself to give us joy filled, warm holidays. Yet the following year was empty and Gray, without Dad who would cook the excellent Christmas meals, but the cook? Who would carry on the legacy of Santa Claus and hopes and dreams, without Dad nothing seemed possible, but the growing void that he wasn't home. The more that I missed my father the greater the gap between my mother and I grew.

In the months following My Fathers hospitalization and my Mother’s frequent disappearances, the computer became my only outlet and since I was hardly allowed to go out due to my brother I’d seek out some ways to communicate with the “outside world.”  I engaged myself in conversations with people I had never met, talked to people I’d normally be to shy to talk to and in that saving grace I had made human contact. During that year my imagination had found me and I took those hours of solitude to improve my art. My mother’s presence became less and less significant, I had gone from hearing arguments all night to complete silence. I felt as though she had turned her back on me. Lately in the night she would stow away to somewhere else, to clubs and friends who were twice her senior. While I stayed at home and struggled to keep my brother and I fed, bathed and put to sleep. However, long into the night when I could hear the door creaking open slightly in the living room  I found myself wishing so badly for her and overwhelming sense that I was the one who had to make her love me. I had to make things better in the house and by the Daddy would come home everything would be fine, they would make up and we’d be like every other family. I showed her that source that I had found clear on my own that source being the internet. We had AOL at the time and chartrooms, email and buddy lists were quite abundant. I figured since I was teaching her something we would bond. We'd bond over a mutual understanding of needing a get away from everything that was going on. However she became much more interested in it then I, and we began to fight over time. Time on the computer, time spent wasted when we could have been really bonding as mother and daughter. She soon began to talk on a community of her own; her disappearances became longer and longer. So much so that my grandmother began to take notice.

            Meanwhile, my father was beginning to get better. My mother spoke of him often and yet I don’t ever recall her visiting him as much as my aunt and my grandmother had. Much like a child who had been caught eating chocolate my mother denied everything, she had claimed hurtful things against my grandmother to point the blame elsewhere. Regrettably my grandmother had backed off and my mother continued on her path to what she might have considered freedom, freedom from her spouse on the verge of death, the burden of children and the guilt of credit card spending. Her indulgence cradled her into denial all in front of watchful twelve year old eyes. 

As for my father I was not allowed to see him, with tubes hanging from tiny metal poles and his eyes swollen from the medicine. I was guarded from the reality of what his pain truly was. As I had heard of his possible arrival I sought out some sort of truce with my mother. I would teach her how to use the computer faster and she would make amends. I sat in front of her begging for her to make better with us, to be a family again. I sat  in front of her dreaming of barbeques and loving families, two families that wouldn't part but instead make amends. I wished so hard that would make right, since my doing wasn't enough; why wasn't I the daughter she had wanted?  I only wished my mother would turn away from the computer and hold her for just one second to make everything go away. My throat became so dry and all my usual sensitivity to sound and the brilliant sun showing through the window had ceased. A tiny piece of me had begun to die, my grades began to deplete to nothing and I questioned myself. I failed the seventh grade; a grade that should have been easy for some, had become a daily battle for me. I wearily began make friends; however I never invited them home, never called them. They saw me and yet never knew of the constant war that I saw at home. The anger inside me rose and I couldn't quite contain myself as I stood behind my mother. Finally one night I gathered the courage to go up to her my fists, balled at my side. I asked her “Mommy where are you going?”
Imagining my hands wrapped around her neck, imagining something that would take her attention away from the computer and away from us. She stood at the pane of the door, hoping no one else would see her leave, but I did. I always knew. Sometimes I worried she would never think to come back. In an emotionless tone she replied. “Out...”

 "Mom you need to listen to me this has to stop... you have to make everything better...”
The tiny clicking on the desk top was all that I heard aside from a slight huff. She seemed exasperated with my presence and turned her head towards me. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, my face hidden slightly by the dim light and my eyes heavy with tears. Her face screwed up in confusion as to whether to comfort or dismiss her daughter. In those seconds she chose the latter and as equally as apathetic as I was worried, she replied.
"What’s wrong with you?"
My heart jolted slightly and I crawled towards her.

"Please don’t go we all can fix this just say you're sorry." A slight grunt from her tilted head, I stared at her hoping for some sign of life, some kind of acknowledgement of my presence but she only sat there, one foot carefully placed under her thigh and her eyes fixated on the screen, so much so that she was hung over her mouth gaping at the screen before her. I had expected things to be different, I knew they would change but never did I suspect they would fall so fast that my very being would be dismissed by the woman who gave me life. In that moment I had become truly and undeniably self conscience. My world had died and she had been the guillotine. For a long time the walls that I had built up remained, in the year that followed my Father came home and I confessed, I confessed everything that had occurred and despite counseling, she was kicked out. Inwardly I struggled with the awkward teen years without my mother. I couldn’t get quite past figuring out what in fact had been wrong with me? My father got better and despite the fact that my family experiences would never again be the same. I am okay.

Macaroni and Rib Eye.

My anxiety is over whelming today.
I can see the laundry piling up, the bed slightly disheveled and I can feel my heart race thinking about the fact that I am graduating in a couple of quarters.

I feel incredibly out of my own league.
I'm scared if I dont start drawing now I am going to forget everything.

Truth is.

I did want to kiss you but it wouldn't make things better.
It would of worsened it by a ton, I have immense foresight now. Being able to see tragedies, being able to avoid conflict and most of all allowing other people but myself to be human.

There is nothing wrong with pining, i do a bit of if myself but it hasn't gotten me anywhere to go back to what is comfortable.

First time shame on you.
Second time shame on me.
Third time? I cannot allow you in, I hope you can respect that.

You do, it kills me but your fingers wont be touching mine anytime soon and  I am okay letting you go.
You deserve to fly.

Desert.

"You deserve better" She smiled at me, one of the most beautiful girls I know and I shied away from her warmth.Clearing my throat I nodded my head like I knew, like I totally kne-- I had no fucking clue.
I had no clue that I did because I dont know if I did and If I tried to explain I did we would be in a whole mess of my selfish insecurities.

She is beautiful and in that moment she saw me for what I was and to another person this might seem silly but I cloaked my pride for a moment and held onto myself wondering what can I do to show her that I appreciate her compliment and yet hate myself all at once?

I'm not a tortured soul, I don't claim myself to be but sitting here at 1 am yet again not knowing quite how to take a compliment, well girly. This might just be it.

I ran my fingers through my hair when we passed by a cute man on howell street, his eyes averted back to the friend he was speaking with and I had to laugh at a joke that my friends told behind me.

Eyes forward, hips rotating to the motion of my footing and in that moment I felt bad ass.
fingers through hair again I brave 60 degree weather in a dress and a wrap hoping to God I wont get sick.

Most importantly were my insecure hands, fiddling with the bangles on my arms and praying to some light that they wouldn't stare and see. They would be able to only make out the color of my dress and not the warm cheeks that threatened to show when the lights were brought back up.

We walked, trees on the pavement fallen like autumn. Her shoes clicked softly and we swayed to the beat of conversations that can only escalate to the stars.

"You really need to stop doing this to yourself.." She said with concern in her voice, her eyes honest and I listened. Not because I couldn't help myself but because for whatever reason she saw the beauty in me.

Night Owl.

I feel like im 14 again.
I'm sitting here in my underwear watching crazy things online and writing a blog. Bethany pointed out how long its been since i've written poetry or fanfiction. She's too right. I dont know what the relevance of this might be but I wonder how many people can reflect, openly without letting it become a 160 character limit on a social media site.

Lately i've been finding myself overly sensitive to meaningless things that are pushed at me online, there are times yes. I am tempted to delete it. Get rid of my cell phone and start fresh.

However, that would only be pushing away things I dont like. If you never confront what irks you how are you going to deal with it in the later times?

Nights here in Belltown are quiet aside from the stomping above. People arriving home from work, at first it was irritating but now theres a comfort in knowing that more people have a home.

So from there I can breathe and relax into my vegetative Hulu state.
I'm done with finals and I just might stretch my wings into the artistic-for-the-sake-of-joy realm.

Toxic Relationships I have to listen to and how to be poor.

I have a headache.

No, its not because of the lack of caffeine I actually have a decent cup of iced coffee that I made from the nights previous but from the obscure amount of fighting going on just a flight above. As with all passive aggressive Seattlites i've taken part to vaguebooking about the situation and making the slight clucking noise with my tongue to ensure the rest of my empty apartment just how annoyed I truly am.

Thus accomplishing nothing.
What kind of right would I have to go up there myself and let them have it? Hand them a pamphlet for couples counseling and kindly shut the door in their faces. I obviously dont know the situation, however unfortunately this lovely couple and their friends, one of them with im sure is named "Bryan" has made it their duty to let everyone  know that they are indeed in a lovers squabble.

I remember those fights, I remember those fights because they would seemingly go on forever and this one went on from 6pm to 2 in the morning where I was tossing and turning trying to dream of sweet things when her piercing cry came through the window. Sniffling and being comforted by a woman she told her how "unfair" he was being and how fucked up the situation was.

I feel like a shitty investigative reporter who is giving an analysis based on a radio show she heard.

I am on two uneven planes, one wanting to risk the pummeling of a probable fist by simply crying out "Shut the fuck up." and the other wanting to knock on their door or leave a note.

This is a funky situation that no one would give two thoughts about in New York. Oh, passivity.

If anything these past couple of days have taught me to be patient with the mornings and more so with my evenings.

I've been taking to making fresh coffee and storing it in the fridge. For making cake and saving it over a course of a week so i have something sweet without spending much more money. For buying food that sustains me and listening to the way the rain sounds when it hits the floor immediately adjacent to my window. I can appreciate the laughter that comes with greeting K.P with a iced coffee and hugging bethany after not seeing her for a while.

I have had to give myself a silent mantra of enjoying my single life instead of wishing I were in something I am not, of thanking the stars that I'm not stuck in a rut relationship where all I want to see is an exit sign.

Maybe I have dillusions of grandeur like Jarrett said.
Or maybe im just in self preservation mode but for the moment its quieter.

I would rather be here, happy, quiet and silently tapping on my keyboard then thinking that its better to be in a toxic relationship.