rant.

last night my mom and i went out to dinner and then went shopping together and we had a really good time. i love my mom and usually she is my best friend. but then every once in a while, like this morning she'll just blow up at me, and i have no idea what brings it on or if she really even means the things she says.

this morning i went downstairs and we talked and everything was fine, and then she left to pick up my sister. while she was gone, i made some eggs, but they ended up being really bad, so i threw them out and started eating cereal instead. i left my pan from making eggs on the stove because i heard that you're not supposed to put water on non stick pans when they're still hot, so i was waiting. so my mom got back and i told them about my eggs being bad and my mom was like, "i need you to put water in the pan after you're done sam, i don't care if it's bad for it, i need you to. i don't understand why you can't just put the damn pan in the sink with water in it." and i was like... well, i'm not even done eating and i already told you why i do it. i'm sorry that sometimes i forget, but if you had just asked me nicely to wash it before i go back upstairs, i would have. and then she got super mad that she has to ask me at all. and then not just about the pan, but about everything. why does she have to ask me to unload the dishwasher? why does she have to ask us to clean the house? so i told her that she should have taught us to be that way, because growing up, we were never expected to just do things. and honestly, i think that it's like this in most households, where the parents have to ask you to do things, especially when it comes to cleaning, even when they get older. she got all mad and then said that i was irresponsible. i am an irresponsible 19 year old.

well shit mom, i am 19. and sometimes i forget to put my pan in the sink. but i have been way better lately. i don't leave all of my shit in the kitchen or in the family room or even in the bathroom. i've kept my room clean while i've been home, and i've been unloading the dishwasher every morning. but i'm not perfect. i'm not a neat freak like you. i don't even like when things are so perfectly in their place. i like some clutter. so the fact that i've been so good should show some progress to you. you have no idea how i was when i lived on my own. yeah i was messy, but as soon as my roommate asked me to do something, i did it.

my mom started talking about how we're all roommates together and roommates all have their assigned things that they do without asking each other. and in my head i was like, ummm have you ever lived with a roommate? especially in a house and not a dorm? because i have and honestly, it was nothing like that. i guess my situation was a tad bit different, but it's like, if you want something done, you do it yourself or you ASK someone else to do it. she's getting all butt hurt that she has to ask me to clean something. she said we were like roommates, but she's the "head" roommate because she is the head of this house. i was like, well, if you're the head of the house, then why do you have an issue with telling us what to do? or just asking us to do something? and she yelled at me that "this is my house and i will run it the way i want."

for some reason, none of this really makes any sense to me. last night she was telling me that she was so proud of me for working almost 40 hours a week. i haven't saved any money yet, but on monday i'm paying off drumline and from then on out i'll be saving a lot. i'm about to get a raise at work too. and then this morning she yells at me for being irresponsible.

if i didn't have to save money for drumline, this would be when i moved out. i would do it, because i know how to live on my own and i know i'm responsible. i do have some things to work on, but when you have a mother who is a neat freak and likes to clean, i guess you start to take advantage, even if it's in the smallest way, like knowing that if you forget to wash your pan every once in a while, that she'll do it for you.

my mom talked to me about a week ago about how lonely i seem. i don't have many friends in chandler and i won't ever make an effort to talk to them. i don't even like spending time with my family anymore. i lock myself away in my room everyday and spend an insane amount of time alone. she said that if i want to go see her therapist, i can. but honestly, i don't think i need to see one. i'm not like, the happiest i've ever been, but i'm also not depressed. and i'm okay with the way things are going for me right now. i'm on a mission, and my mission is to try out for a few different world groups and hope that i am successful at at least one of them. i can't move out now, because then i won't be able to save enough money to even go to auditions.

i think i'm a very responsible person, not just for my age, but just in general. if my mom doesn't agree because i'm not a neat freak like her, then i don't really care. i'll continue to lock myself in my room, i won't go downstairs until she's gone. i'll clean up all of my messes and i'll make it seem like i'm not even here. i won't let her use my car anymore and i'll do everything myself.

i always thought my mom was a good mom, but it's times when she starts getting mad at me for who i am because of the way i was raised, that remind me that she could have done better.

school.

i've been thinking in the past couple days that i might go back to school. like, over the summer. and then fall. and so on. haha. i've really enjoyed taking the semester off. no school, no homework. but to be honest, i've been slightly bored. i don't want to go back to full time just yet, but i think taking a class or two would be good. every time i talked to my friends and they said something about school, it made me feel dumb for not being in school anymore. and if i take more time off, it might turn into forever off, and i don't want to work in fast food my whole life...

a couple days ago i saw this picture on tumblr.



i've seen it before, and both times i just stared and stared at it. the second time though, i remembered how in elementary and junior high school i wanted to be an architect. i've been trying to figure out what i want to do with my life lately, and this seems like the first real and possible thing that i have thought of that i've wanted to do for a while. it just seems more... realistic than some of the things i've been thinking in the past couple months. the word realistic sounds kind of depressing to me, but it's really not in this situation! haha.

so this summer i think i'm going to start catching up on math. then take all of the classes i can take at cgcc. asu has a program, so i think eventually i will apply there. i don't and will never regret going to nau, but i bet i would have gotten a better scholarship had i applied to asu in the first place... now i have some bad grades on my transcripts, so i doubt i would get a scholarship :/ but, i'd probably be able to afford student loans if go into architecture... right? haha

i think this is happening.

things i have learned from my mother.

1. don't settle for any man who isn't your soul mate.
2. don't run away from your problem. they'll catch up to you eventually.
3. don't push away the people you love, even if they have hurt you.
4. forgive people who have hurt you, even if they are not still in your life. don't do it for them, do it for yourself.
5. realize what your dreams are and go for them now.
6. accept everyone for who they are, if you don't like them, you don't have to be friends with them, but you shouldn't try to change them.
7. don't tell people not to cry when they are upset. tell them it's okay to cry and let everything they are feeling out.
8. don't let anything bottle up inside for too long.
9. stay positive.
10. enthusiasm can change any situation.
11. think of all of your options.
12. be patient.
13. there are more important things than money.
14. how to be healthy.
15. support the people you love, no matter what they want to do.

there are so many more things that i have learned from her. unfortunately for my mom, most of these lessons have come from me seeing her do the complete opposite and me telling myself i will never do that. i've been so happy lately and i know it's because she's helped me to be that way. it hurts me to know that she's hurting so much, and i really hope she makes it through this. i know deep inside that she will, but i don't think she believes that.

pursuit of happiness.

this week has been very productive for me! on monday i worked and got my paycheck, so i was able to pay off my landlord! i sent her the last check i owe her and i'm super pumped to not have to worry about it anymore :P that night i went shopping with my mom and then got to see my sister do gymnastics for the first time in about two years. and wow! she got sooo good! then yesterday i practiced cymbals and learned some new visuals that i've been trying to figure out for ages! it... was super exciting :D then i got my haircut yeeeahhhhh. i needed one so bad! haha. today i woke up at 6am for work at 7am. i got off after an hour because she only needed me to help with a catering order. haha, but i got a free smoothie out of it! i came back and was practicing for a bit again, but my arms were tired and i didn't want them to get too bad before drumline tonight, so i went for a walk instead. now i've already eaten lunch and it's only 10! haha, i feel great.

while i was on my walk i was thinking about how unhappy i thought i was going to be moving back here. i told my mom that i would be absolutely miserable. and yeah, there have been some rough patches in the past few months, but overall, i feel so happy. i'm not really sure what it is. i'm away from most of my friends, i spend my days that i don't work alone, and i'm on a drumline that i don't really like. but for some reason, waking up every morning and getting out of bed is so easy. i love the alone time i get to just relax, and then i love seeing my friends at drumline. i love working and getting paychecks and i love being able to workout on my free time. i love seeing my family every night and i love having animals around the house. some of my blogs recently have been filled with the things i hate, but this one is filled with love.

super cheesy but whatevs, i'm happy :P

choose to be happy.

sometimes i think about when i was happiest. and i used to think it was when i was in flagstaff last semester, doing marching band, rushing for kappa kappa psi, living on my own, working for something i wanted. when i decided to move home i was terrified that i would lose everything i had worked for in regards of happiness. i realized that i had never been happy while living in chandler and for some reason i just associated chandler with every bad thing that has ever happened to me.

now that i've been home for about a month and half, and i can honestly say that i feel happy. i have a job that i enjoy for the most part, i get to live at home with my family for free, i get to eat for free, i get to work out all day (except when i get my period like right now... hehe tmi). but everyday i get to get out of bed and be carefree. and i love it. i know what my goals and what my obligations are, and i'm, for once, enjoying the road it's taking me to get there. i miss flagstaff of course, but i'm actually very glad i came back.

i'll be paying off this drumline season for a while, but i'm so happy that i have a job so i can eventually do that. i'm excited for the first paycheck i get that doesn't have to go to drumline, even though that's months from now, i'm looking forward to putting in my back account and having it stay there. having something to look forward to i think is what really is keeping me going.

but mostly, i think it's just because i'm choosing to be happy. i used to have someone in my life who would always tell me that he would just choose to be happy instead of something else, and i tried to explain that it's not that easy sometimes, and it really isn't. but right now i know there isn't much holding me back, and the things that are, won't be holding me back for much longer. i'm looking on the bright side of life and enjoying everything i have and everything i soon will have. and i think that's a wonderful way to live life.

endhappinessrant. :D

"you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

so, my post yesterday was definitely dramatic and long and ranty. i just wanted to say that today was a lot better. i didn't do much today, but i think that's exactly what i needed to calm myself down. a day to sit, be lazy, watch movies, and trashy talk shows. i talked to my brother and my mom about things other than drumline. i planned to see my friend halonna who i haven't gotten to talk to in far too long. and i realized that today is a new day.

my brother got a haircut. this isn't really exciting news or anything, but he was so excited. he gets really excited over the smallest things. i was in my room when he got home so he called my name to have me come downstairs and see how short it was. he told me not to tell mom or jamie because he wanted to surprise them. i laughed to myself because really, he got about an inch cut off, and he just got his haircut a few weeks ago, but whenever he gets something like a haircut or shaves his face or grows out his facial hair or whatever, he always gets so excited. he loves seeing people's reactions. it's also funny to me because for the longest time he had long hair. he hated the look of short hair and never wanted to get it cut. our dad, stepmom and uncle looked down on him for having long hair because they thought it made him look... i don't even know. homeless? like he did drugs? like a bad kid? while he was really difficult, they thought that him wanting short hair as a teen would shape who he was going to be for the rest of his life. my brother loves video games. he used to play them nonstop. he hated school and never did his homework. my dad's side of the family didn't even think he would be able to graduate from high school or go to college. and now he's a senior in high school, about to graduate and signing up for community college with his heart set on getting a degree in something math related.

i remember when i was younger, i would get so mad whenever i went to my dad's because of the things they said to and about my brother. even though we fought like crazy back then, he was still my brother and i would do anything for him. i still resent my dad to this day for things that he assumed. and for some reason, all because of a short haircut my brother got, it made me think about how proud i am of him. he doesn't just sit in his room anymore. after school he comes home and talks to me and jamie. he talks to my mom. he eats dinner with us. he tries to keep the house clean. he does (most of) his school work. he talks about politics and economics and things that i don't understand.

my grandma just emailed me asking about his graduation and asking if he was even going to be able to graduate. i know i used to be the smart, motivated one, but now i'm a college drop out, thinking of going into either photography or cinematography, not finance or psychology or something else that's smart. my brother is. i used to be my grandma's favorite. she still sends me money here and there along with emails of how she's doing. when i mentioned it to austin, he said he she never emails him or sends him money. i remember my stepmom telling me pretty much that i was her favorite, and that i had to please her, because i'm the smart one. she needs me. and now it's kind of turning around, even if she doesn't know it yet.

i tried to plan out the next ten years of my life last night. haha, sounds kind of lame, but i have all of these things i want to accomplish, so i thought maybe if i wrote it down, it would make things more motivating. and seeing everything all typed out, it just looked so boring. i know i need to just wait it out, stop focussing on the future and live in the now, but now isn't as appealing as the future. or even the past. if i could relive august 2010-december 2010, i would. over and over. it wasn't perfect, but i was the happiest i've ever been then.

i'll probably never stop planning my future. i think about the future everyday, almost constantly. to not know what's going to happen in my future really freaks me out. and i'm waiting ever so patiently for it to be may, so everything going on right now will be over and i can focus on something else. i hate this feeling that i have of being... stuck. not moving forward, being held back. i just want to know that all of the things i want to accomplish and have been dreaming about are going to happen.

"waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life."

i will agree with anyone who says i made last season dramatic for the cymbal line, because frankly, i did. i didn't agree with the section leader and sometimes i would purposefully disagree with him, just for the sake of proving him wrong. i know there isn't just one way to do things, especially in drumline. i know that last season could have gone better. but i can justify it (to myself at least) by saying that i learned from my mistakes. i didn't respect the section leader when i should have, no matter what. usually respect is something i give to everyone until they prove to me they don't deserve it.

i can honestly say that at the end of last season, no matter how much drama i caused, i wasn't exactly ready for it to be over. after state i still wanted to go down for rehearsals. i felt like i could have kept going and that by the end i did manage to salvage my relationships with most of the cymbal line.

when i decided to do drumline this year... i thought it would be better. i didn't want to do breakthrough again and i really thought i would learn more at mosaic. i don't regret not doing breakthrough. i'm pretty picky and i know i wouldn't like being on their cymbal line due to technique alone. but i never thought i would regret being involved in a drumline as much i regret joining mosaic. i generally don't regret anything. if i make a mistake, i view it as a learning experience, not a regret.

what have i learned at mosaic?

how to play cards.

yeah. i think that's it. i tried really hard to think of something else too.

it honestly bothers me that i care so much, but this is something i am so passionate about. and to regret something i have so much passion for is killing me. i've never had to hold back so much and never felt this disrespected for speaking up. i decided a while ago to only speak up about things that i really feel strongly about. i spoke up about our floor, and most of the time, i was just agreeing with people, but for some reason i, over other people who were the ones suggesting things, was attacked by people, asking if i had ever seen wgi finals before and saying that my ideas (that were ideas other people came up with), were impossible to paint...

today i was trying to tell my section leader, someone who i have respected all season, even if i don't necessarily with her, that i didn't have enough money to buy something we really didn't need and something that i already have, just not exactly the same as what she was telling us to get. i said it very politely and was answered with well this is what we're doing. "no more discussion." as much as i tried to explain that i have absolutely no money to buy anything, no matter how much it costs, i was given "no exceptions" and "no more arguments." my mom is a very blunt person who hardly ever curses, but when explaining it to her, she thought it was way out of line and started using the eff bomb (it was slightly funny).

we started talking about my reputation. because i said i won't quit, even though i want to, because i'm not a quitter. so she asked me what the rest of the line probably thinks of me based off of what they have seen so far. and honestly, i would say most people probably view me as an dramatic, stuck up, dumb bitch. i really hope that's not what people think, but at this point, i really don't care. the people in this drumline who actually know me and talk to me don't think that, so i couldn't give a fuck.

but it got me thinking about what i think i am. i personally think that i am opinionated, experienced, and a natural leader. i can talk about drumline for days because i've been doing it for so long and it's something i'm very passionate about. outside of drumline i'm a really sweet person who would do anything for almost anyone. i'm really open minded about most things, but when it comes to things i know really well, like cymbals, i have very strong opinions. when i tell people my opinions, they tend to think that i'm whining, when i'm just telling them what i think. i care so much about the things i do, and it hurts me when people attack me for something i feel i don't deserve to be attacked for. almost every time i say something i have to say, "i don't mean to be dramatic," or "i'm not trying to be difficult," because i think that people think that's what i am. but really, i have a lot more experience than most people at mosaic, and i know a lot about drumline. i'm very observant. i watch drumline videos all the time and it boggles my mind that people think there isn't a difference between mosaic and groups like pulse or mcm. that we do things the same as them. obviously we don't, otherwise we would be as good as them... i read about these groups, how they were started, what they did to get to where they are. i stalk their members and techs and directors facebooks and learn as much as i can about them to try and see what it's like to be on a line like that. and just from what i've observed by doing that, i know that it's different at better groups. i know the director of mosaic well enough to know exactly what he's going to say and exactly what he's going to do. whenever i predict something, i'm always told by people that it wouldn't happen, gary's not like that. but it does. every time. i'm not a section leader, i've never marched drum corps, and i started the season after auditions, and i think for that reason i haven't been given respect. honestly, i don't feel like i deserve respect or anything, but i gave my respect to every person in that drumline, and was given nothing back. i'm not a section leader, but i am a natural leader. i can't help it. i'm the eldest of my siblings and in the past i've been thrown into section leader positions and had to lead without any example. i wasn't good when i first started, i had to work my way up. i had to challenge myself and get better through time. i gained experience. i've been doing this for years now and i don't plan on stopping until i have to.

does all this mean no respect? i'm not trying to beg for respect or anything, i'm more just ranting about things that i've never felt i could say out loud without being pounced on, but i know if anyone from mosaic read this it would probably just make them dislike me more.

maybe i am just being over dramatic and reading things in the wrong context. but i'm so soo tired of all the shit that's being thrown my way. from drumline, from work, from my landlord, from my house.

on my tumblr i always talk about how much i hate money. i hate not having it. i hate the way having it makes people. i hate that having money gives you opportunity. i hate that you can't do anything without spending money. i hate that when you don't have money, that's when everything goes wrong and you have to spend the most money.

my mom apologized tonight for not working for two and a half years. i didn't say anything. i was about to say, "oh, it's okay," but then i realized that no, it's not okay. i know for a lot of that time it was because you couldn't find a job, but now we're all suffering. i can't afford to buy a twenty dollar pair of gloves because i can't borrow it from my mom. and i know that really isn't her fault, but my mom used to make so much money that borrowing twenty dollars wouldn't have even made a dent. but now it's spending everything she has pretty much.

i really hate that this drumline costs so much, and that i'm not even going to be able to pay it off until after the season is over. and it's going to take me a while to do it too.

i kind of hate how long this blog is, but i really needed to get this all out. i'm not really sure if there's a point to all of this, but i think it's mostly that i am just so over drumline right now. i guess not drumline in general, but this drumline. i hate the feeling of regret that i have for it, and i hate that i dread going to rehearsal so much. the only reason i haven't quit is out of a feeling of obligation and not wanting to be "that person."

i just want to be heard. for someone to understand where i'm coming from. to not feel like i'm going crazy. to be at a better drumline.

i guess the only good thing is that my motivation for making an out of state world group gets stronger every time i'm at rehearsal.