high school

So, I found out a few weeks ago that I am now a member of the Youth Leadership Team of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. I'm pretty excited about it, and suddenly I am being given a powerful voice in my community, one that I get to use to educate and influence my fellow humans with. My first opportunity to save the world is at hand! I know that I have not been an active member recently, but the fall always seems to be the time I pick up old projects as well as start new ones, so I hope you all wil bear with me and what I know will be my randomness in these coming months.

I removed this blog for personal reasons. I apologize.

My boyfriend of fifteen months dropped a bombshell on me not too long ago. It's complicated, and deeply personal, but here's the gist of it.

TJ told me that he had fallen out of love with me. He still loves me, but he isn't "in love" with me. I hate that phrase. If you love someone, you love someone. But, apparently, combinations of miscommunication and mistakes on my part (mainly) and his led him to cheat on me.

Now, cheating is a strong word in this case. All that happened is that he got caught up in the moment and kissed on of his "girl friends." Just a little kiss, as far as I understand. He apparently told her that he wanted to leave me because he wasn't "in love" with me but he still loved me and didn't want to hurt me, and she in turn told a bunch of people that we were breaking up, which wasn't true.

I am fed up. I am confused. I am lost. I am unsure about so many things. I am somehow happy right now; but I know I won't be tomorrow, or Tuesday, or maybe even later tonight.

Why? Because for two weeks, my friends have gotten into a fight every day. For two weeks, I have argued with them constantly. For two weeks I have been completely confused. For these two weeks I've been facing my past while fighting with the present.

And I can't stand it anymore. I needed to escape and I did-for two days. Why not longer? Because there is no escape for much longer, anyway.

This is so frustrating. Especially with one situation:

I recently told my mom that she's not gettting me a birthday gift for my eighteenth. She's helping me move out.

Why? I decided two years ago that I wanted to move out, and become independant, the moment I turn eighteen. Since then I've done a little bit of saving money, and a lot of hard work.

Since we moved, my grades have actually gone down. Now I have a few friends, and waaay more distractions; I don't have a reason to spend all my lunches indoors anymore, I have nothing to fear. And so my grades have slipped, and while I know I have four years to get them back up, and above what they were (I think to get into Ryerson w.scholarship I'll need something like 95% GPA) but I feel kind of guilty.

I hate the word slut. I really do, it makes me feel so low and dirty. It seems like every high school boy loves the word, though, because I get called one at least once a day. If not it's whore or skank or something equally demeaning. I know their mothers didn't raise them like that, so where did they figure out it was okay?

I was having an emotional day, it was near Internationals and we were cramming to rememorize a play, rebuild the set, everything. I was sitting in the hallway with my friend Catherine and this guy (who before high school was actually nice to me, we had, like, conversations) walks by, looks at me, and says, 'Zen you're a slut.'

So, I went to the International Thespian Festival, which is held every year in my hometown of Lincoln, NE. I was acting in a show that performed there, and so we stayed the week, watching shows, taking workshops, meeting people from other states.

Theatre to me is an outlet, a chance to be someone different. You always have those other people in you, but the stage is just an excuse to let others see them. But recently theatre has been very hard for me. My director is a dear woman, and an inspiration to all people under 5' (which I am not, but I was once). I know she has to be assertive to get people to take her seriously, and she is almost always serious. I have looked up to her for these first two years of my high school career, and I just realized my director is sexist.