Sheep in the Bathtub

My bathtub is full of sheep, not the kind that smell like dung and farm soil but the white fluffy kind in commercials and cartoons. They crowd against the white sides, sharing not really matching. They should be hopping over fences as I snore into my pillow, drooling a tiny stream that could be a waterfall to tiny people with tin foil houses. Instead they baa against the sides of my tub, that’s deeper and smaller than any bathtub I have ever seen and that makes me think of a song we once sang in Sunday school, wide and deep that just seemed to turn into um and um. Whatever that meant. Nothing to do with Jesus really. The sheep have found my makeup, and they dab on the daring hues that I thought would ring my eyes with glamour and interest, but only scared me when I looked in the mirror and saw my face blooming with bruises that were like the swirl of sherbet when I pried the carton lid off, in the deep freeze like a frost lined casket of creaking rusting tin. The sheep have somehow climbed inside the drain, and their baas echo in the pipes and through the white room. The faces are now purple and pink and melon and orange and their hooves are daubed with the contents of the bend in the pipe, slick with rinsed away (not quite) conditioner, stubbled with the stubborn hairs from leg after leg after leg. One sheep stands white and apart, dripping slowly with what could be water, what could be every tear ever shed in that shower, a wet salty drop that should have blended with flowery shampoo or harshly scented manclean shaving cream and filtered through the lines and forgotten wet places. Some angry water nymph must have saved the tears and poured them wherever life needed salting. She has a heavy hand. I shut my bedroom door, considering the sturdy walls around me that almost block the baaing from the white room, daubed with sheep. I need to close my eyes, scrubbed clear of any color, scrubbed until they are hot and prickly, blooming with cactus flowers ringed with thorns, but I can’t seem to do it. What if the sheep decide to go where they belong? I don’t want their imposing hooves in my dreams anymore. Another baa and I may jump of that tall building in my dreams that always seems to be waiting for a needed plummet and leave the tin foil village and angry nymph behind. This idea makes me smile a minute, cracking across my cheeks an unfamiliar pattern of muscles and commands my face has to obey, creaking with misuse, angry to be disturbed. My pillow lies there, it pretends I am not considering it, but the dreams that I have had while I hover in agony and delight over its clumpy softness are as much a clump and less a soft as any feather or insinuating pillow case. Some mornings I feel it climbing into my ears, trying to bargain with my brain for just another moment of that dream, a few seconds to feel what was coming, barreling down on me with a sunrise awakening nightmare.

My bathtub can stay full of sheep.

Exhaustion

So I've been sick all week. Working "going to class" or not...and I am just so tired. I need this job, and I know it, but working until 9:30 has been hard enough, I can imagine when it changes to 1 am.

Its messing with me. And not just me, but the people I come into contact with, especially my poor boyfriend.

I don't want to be grouchy. I just want to sleep.

love to you all,
Hana

Germy Germy Play-Dough and Cubicles

So I had my first day at Convergys yesterday. HR spent about two hours telling us the many many reasons we could be fired. Then they informed us that we would really not have time off. Then our trainer started on the dress code.

Now I like to dress up most of the time. Jeans, tshirt and sneakers are really not my favorite things. Still, when I took the job they said that was fine. I still wore a nice outfit yesterday (first day!) Anyway, the dress code is changing, we all have to wear business casual which I am fine with....except it's no cleavage. Holy crap. Though I am not the biggest boobed babe out there, I am well endowed and its HARD not to show any cleavage! I went home and looked in my closet. Yeah, not going to be easy. I can swathe myself in scarves or buy some more turtlenecks... The reason I took this job is because I am in srrious debt. I can't go "oh, I'm in debt but I will get a whole new wardrobe that will make me look positively flat chested!" and even if I could I don't think I would want too.

Anyway, thats just a small thing. My training class is pretty large, 27 others. There are the normal people you find in a group in the south, several people who have done this kind of work before, several bratty college students who think they know it all, the older ladies that hate computers but can't work anywhere else, the dudes that dropped out of college because its more than drinking beer...Only one of them really annoyed me and I will just sit far far away from him. There are a couple of really nice girls my age, and a really really tall dude that sat beside me and whispered equally sarcastic replies to my sarcastic comments. Hurrah! We have to sit by someone different today, but I am enjoying meeting some new people.

One thing that really cracked me up, they had play-dough and slinkies sitting all over the tables, our trainer (Judy) said to play with it to keep our hands busy "and our minds awake" hahahaha they are trying so hard to be all cutting edge and modern, it cracked me up. We went on a tour of the building, saw our cubicles where we will be on the floor etc.

I hate cubicles. I hated being inside when the sun set, when the afternoon was the most beautiful. I went out on the smokers deck on our second break, and that was ok, but it was already dark.

Anyway, this is a means to an end. I can do this, and I can do it well, while learning skills that I can draw on in front of a classroom.

I seem to be going for quantity here...more later.
yours,
Hana

and I will be!

My reply

Pat,

Since we became "Friends" on face book the only times you have said anything to me is to judge my profile or to look down your nose at me and make assumptions about my life. My parents have no desire to have anything to do with my life, and that is why I have made a new one for myself. When I do speak with them they tell me the choice I am making to go to school to become a teacher is endorsed by the devil, and I am his child for doing so, etc. As for me "abandoning my faith" that is something that you may feel to be true when you look at my life, and that makes me sad because you are judging me without any real knowledge of my life.

I also think that in "trusting the sincerity of the parents hearts..." you could easily miss the true root of the problem. I am not saying that the parents are always to blame, but in some cases it is that way. You hold my parents in seemingly high esteem, but in leaving home I was able to put a past of hypocrisy, anger and abuse behind myself and focus on a future with hope, goals, and purpose. I would have been more than willing to share this with you if you wished to ask, though it is not something I really like to talk about with anyone, but instead you jumped to the immediate conclusion that as the child, I was in the wrong.

All that I can say here is the different path is not always the worse path.

Good luck with your worldview seminars, though I can't imagine sitting under you and learning about "worldview" when your own is so biased.

Hana

and her reply:

hese questions may seem startling unless you read my other message asking permission to ask you these questions. Hopefully you have, and you'll know why I'm writing these questions to you.

1. At what point in your upbringing did you begin to lose respect for your parents? Why?
2. At what point did you come to realize that you did not agree with your parent's morals and values? Why?
3. Do you believe that there is, in fact, a God and that the Bible is His word?
4. If the answer to #3 is yes, do you believe it's important for Christians to be obedient to God's word?
5. Are you a Christian? If so, how do you define the term "Christian"?
6. What do you believe is the determining factor, in your life, as to what is right and wrong for you?
7. What advice would you give parents who have strong convictions concerning their personal beliefs?
8. What could your parents have done differently in your upbringing that would have made them better parents?

I'm not "on a mission" to change you, bridge relationships in your family, or anything else like that and no-one but you will know I've asked you these questions. I haven't spoken to your parents in years. I'm just very perplexed about the huge number of teens/young adults who are making the same choices you are making and I'm very confused by it. If you are wiling to answer these questions, then I'll probably have more for you to answer (depending on your answers).

If you think there are other questions I should be asking in order to better understand you, feel free to share whatever you'd like. I'm hoping that my understanding you will, in turn, make me a better parent.

I'm half way expecting a "What? Are you nuts? Mind your own business." response -- but I hope that's not what I get.

~~~~~~~~~~
geez. I give up

So she wants me to be brutally honest....

This is why I don't put my last name on the internet. Because people like this find me and feel they have every right to my life.

It's mine people. NOT yours.

thank you very much,
Hana

"Hana,

I'm wondering if you would be willing to answer some questions for me -- being brutally honest with me. I am a first generation Christian. I did not become a Christian until I was 17. Before that I was a hippie who partied big time. I was a self proclaimed atheist in high school. As a Christian parent, wanting to raise children who have a close relationship with God, I have observed that many children abandon the faith in which they were raised, once they are out on their own. I'm well aware of many mistakes Don and I have made in our years of parenting, and, as with everyone else, we are still a work in process.

My questions would be directed towards the personal choices you are now making and you may not want to respond to them. I conduct and teach worldview seminars and I see many different types of families, all trying to raise their children to love God. Although I trust the sincerity of the parent's hearts ... myself included ... I see children choosing much different paths. Obviously you have chosen a different path than what your parents have laid out for you. If you choose to answer these questions I will not share your answers with anyone without your permission and only in a general (no names mentioned) sense. Why, you might ask, am I doing this? Because I am really disturbed and confused and I want to understand how it happens that children raised by parents such as yours end up with children choosing such a different path.

I'll send the questions in the next email. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Pat"

There are pros and cons to living alone. Since I love making lists, and this one has been brewing for several days I will lay it all out here. Enjoy.

Pros
Milk/Toothpaste/OJ/TP/Cereal/Everything lasts longer. Seriously, when Hope was living with me we NEVER had milk. Without her I'm still working on the gallon we started while she was here.

I can come and go as I please without feeling guilty for leaving her alone, or having to drag her around to places she really didn't want to go.

Work is my refuge again. I don't have to entertain her AND work, I can just sit and peacefully sew.

I get the mail every day :) sue, me that is one of my small and favorite pleasures.

My bathroom stays neater! I mean, she has lived with 8 brothers for yeaaaaaaaaaaars. But I did too...and there are some things that are simply NOT done hahahaha

I can walk around naked again. Without shame. She never really got this practice.

Sleep! I can stay up all night and do homework, listen to music or try to walk on the ceiling. Not a problem.

Sleep! part two. I am not losing any hearing her get it on with her boyfriend while I huddled in bed, woefully celibate.

Sleep! part three. I can bring guys home now without feeling like a bad example. True, now there is only one guy I want to bring home, but options are now there that weren't before.

The electric bill is MUCH lower. Because I lived with nanny so long I don't turn on every light in the house. I even prefer candles. So my $60-$90 dollar electric bill (ouch!!!) has shrunk back down to its accustomed $25ish bill. Hurrah!!!!!


Cons

Coming home to an empty house.
That says just about everything. Not to mention having no convenient and familiar shoulder to cry on, person to give advice about outfits, the cryptic things some guy is saying, complain about work, brag about work, watch the new Gossip Girl with, borrow hair bands from, fight with over the little things (like the oj, tp, electric bill etc.)

I miss her.

I had just become used to being alone. Now I am all over again, and its worse than the first time.
I just found someone. Or he found me. Or we found each other at the same moment. And I'm trying not to ruin this. And I'm trying to be myself. And I'm trying not to jump to the conclusions my mind always does.

But I go home to an empty apartment that I can't afford.
And my heart breaks more than I can afford.

And most of the time I'm happy. But a lot of the time I am like this.

Enough.
Love.
your
Hana

Mornings

I used to be a morning person. Living alone and having a more flexible schedule changed that, but with my classes and jobs this semester I am gradually reclaiming that territory.

The world is so new and untouched in the morning. I can put my fingerprints all over it, and call it mine.

Still, my days seem so alike the one before.

and I must just tell myself, life goes on.

Love to you all,
Hana

So much on my mind...

...but no words to share it.

Unless they are others:


since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
ee cummings

Death no parenthesis. I like that.
Something else I have been thinking, my Nanny says this a lot "I will sleep in my grave"

so yeah.
yours,
Hana