The guilt that doesn't go away.

I was talking to my coworker tonight about this fight that I had with my dad when I was 16 or 17. My dad and I are really close, and we rarely, if ever, fight. In fact, I can't remember any other fight we've had since then... or before then for that matter. My mom and dad and I were going to Reno, and my dad had said the night before that we were going to leave around 8am. Being the procrastinator I am, I waited until that morning to pack, keeping in mind the 8am deadline. I got up around 6am and took a shower, and was working on my packing, definitely taking my time. My dad is the kind of person who likes to get an early start, so when he SAID 8am, what he really meant was that he wanted to get going as early as possible. Anyway, I heated up some leftovers (Mandarin Spicy Chicken from when we'd gone out to dinner the previous night--we were going to be gone for a week or so and I didn't want it to go bad), and started eating. He suddenly jumped up, asking me what I was doing and didn't I think that we were going to stop somewhere for breakfast and that he and mom were waiting on me all morning and what did I think I was doing? And then... I said the thing that I never thought I was capable of saying. I don't even want to say it here because I still am in shock over it. Let's just say... that I called him the worst possible thing you could imagine a daughter calling her father. Of course, he completely flew off the handle (and rightfully so) and then the whole trip was tainted with this opening fight that we (or more correctly, I) had ruined it with. I was completely at fault for it. I don't know what compelled me to go there--into that unthinkable realm of name-calling that doesn't get anyone anywhere, but just makes a person look like a heartless, selfish idiot. I'm pretty sure I'll live the rest of my life in regret over this fight because I love my dad so much and I never meant to let it get that far. You know how you might think something mean, but never actually say it? Instead of just keeping it to myself, I let myself slip and it's something that I think I'll be paying for for a long long time. I cried and cried and cried after the fight. It was the kind of crying where you can't catch you breath and you run out of tears and you rub you eyes so much that they turn blood-shot red. I've never cried so hard in my life, but it wasn't over how my dad reacted, it was because of the shame I felt. I've never been more ashamed of anything I've ever done. I have never told anyone about the fight and I don't know why exactly I brought it up to my coworker... I think we were talking about cussing and why people do it or something. Even as the story was coming out of my mouth I was thinking "what are you doing? STOP!" but I kept going. I guess on some subconscious level I thought it might be something like a confessional. Maybe I was hoping that telling someone about it would help me deal with it better. No. No. Not even close. I couldn't believe the look on her face when I told her this story. I wish I hadn't. It was this horrified, shocked kind of face that has lost some measure of respect for you. She said she couldn't believe that I could actually say that to someone, much less my dad. I told her that it was almost inadvertent--that I was just as shocked after it happened as were my mom and dad. Now I'm going through all the turmoil and trauma of the event all over again because it's become like this little black spot in the back of my mind that will always be there to shame me. I don't know how I can get past it. It's the sort of guilt that doesn't just go away.

It's scary when you have to schedule a time to sleep.

It seems like I can't find time to do anything fun anymore. When I do have free time, I always use it to sleep, which seems like such a waste. I'm at a point right now where I've been going going going without a substantial break from it all. In fact, I think I'm so used to this high pace, school work steven schoolworksteven that when school is finally out of the picture it'll seem like I have more time. I know that all of my pre-work hobbies have pretty much dissolved over time (like piano and drawing and such), but I think I'm going to really dedicate myself to finding those things again once I graduate. Maybe I'll look into piano lessons again. Randomly, I'll sit down at the piano and try to play something. It's not a total mess, but the total lack of playing has certainly made an impact on my abilities. I would love to be able to retrain myself, and since I have the basic tools to do that, it seems like it might work out. I really want to have that back in my life. It seems like being so absorbed in school and work has made me forget about things that used to make me really happy, like playing music, or creating something. Not that I don't enjoy reading and writing...I feel like I've learned a lot in college--things that I think may or may not contribute to a high-paying career, but will definitely shape my character and help me grow as a person. One of my teachers at Highline (an old guy who looked like the stereotypical "scholar"), said that as college students, we should try to take as many literature and english classes as we could, and introductory classes of everything else. He was into the whole "self-teaching" philosophy of learning... Digression! Anyway, yeah, that's going to be one of my main goals in the coming year: regaining my piano/music hobbies.

The first blog I've ever posted.

I don't have much to say right now, but I'm creating this so that when I do have something to say that I can't say somewhere else, I can write it and leave it floating in cyberspace.