My Sisters Keeper – by Jodi Piccoult

I read this book a while back – earlier this year. A few people had told me that I had to try reading a Jodi Piccoult… and I managed to get my hands on this one.

I really enjoyed the read… until the end. The book was a journey of discovery for each of the characters involved – you got to see the family and the lawyer all come together and start to understand one another. And then the ending happened. I was so angry. I had become emotionally involved with the characters of a book – and then she kills the one off – the one who fought so hard to live… dies. I was so angry and it took me a while to read another Jodi… but that’s not the reason for this post. And what it did do was tell me… that Jodi is a really good writer… to draw you in like that!

The reason for this post is that… well, the movie has just come out. And with the book, I knew what was going on at all times, who the “author” was and what year/date was for each chapter. The movie, well, I reckon that if I hadn’t read the book I wouldn’t have understood the movie at all. It went from one scene to the next with no frame of reference, you don’t know where you are and in what year… I reckon they should have at least, at the beginning of each “new” time frame, put a “Summer 97″ or “winter 90″ or something like that so that you could see the different time for each of these scenes… I was helluva confusing.

And the last thing that bugged me about the movie – the wrong person dies! I mean, I get that you can’t have all the other character developments and mini trials etc that each of the characters are facing with themselves – but come on. To kill the wrong person off??? WTF???

If you haven’t read any of her work yet – I wouldn’t suggest starting with this one – perhaps try “Harvesting the heart” or… there’s one about faith… (have a little faith? or Having faith? -  the question on the book is something like – You don’t believe in God, but your daughter believes she’s talking to him/her – what would you do?).

Its been a while

Wow. I can’t believe its been so long.

All I know is that I have missed writing. Missed it badly. I have everynow and again picked up my book and started writing something… but it always seems flat. As though its missing something… You know, the something that makes it interesting. The something that makes it readable… And I realise that I seem to have lost the, not that passion, but the desire… no, not even the desire. I still do want to write, I really enjoy doing it… and the more you do it, the better it gets! And I miss it.

After so many months of no practicing, what I’ve written down lately is missing feeling. Its missing passion. Because I’ve forgotten where to start and I seem to have left my imagination behind… as I get more clinical and technical and logical at work, my creative side seems to close up on me and hide from me… but… this weekend is going to be spent scrap booking!!! Being creative!!! I will dig deep and find the creative again! And perhaps… perhaps I might once again start writing here regularly…

but whatever you do… don’t give up… I am still here, I do still come and visit and read… I am still here…

Thinking about vs actually doing something

I’ve been thinking about this book I want to write. Something in my head… just waiting to be written.

I’ve had the idea in my head for almost a year now… but I can’t seem to get it started.

You see, the problem is, that I can see how it starts beautifully, and then I can see maybe the first chapter… and after that, well, what is the plot, the story line? I know that once I start it, the words will come, the story will flow, and the character will find herself as and when she is meant to.

Now I’m not sure exactly how the story will go, or even if I should write about it in this space…  I know that if I give the idea, and the start, then its my idea, my copywrite,  but I also know that the internet is a magical place, where everyone has access to everything…

On the other side of the coin… perhaps it is the best place to start it… because that will then give me a time and place to write what I want to write… to at least see where it will go….

It may be a bit dark, a bit sad, a bit horrible… I have some really strange things that go on in my mind at the best of times…

So, if you are keen, then, perhaps tomorrow I will start writing the story that is in my head. This will be a first draft – one that will be improved upon as I type it up and out… you will see the first “rendition” and I would also love feedback, you know, perhaps this should happen, or that should happen – and we can guide the story like that…

Do you remember those books, you know “If X says no to this, turn to page 55, if he says yes, turn to page 92″. And in that way, you drove the story… I hated those books (besides the point I know)… but there won’t be another option, I will take into account any comments, or just continue to write what is in my head….

Starting (hopefully) tomorrow…

The way that others see you

I always find it strange. You know, the way that someone else looks at me. The way that they understand me. The way that they “see” me.

My cousin and I were born 4 months apart. I have known her all my life. We weren’t close growing up, but since my move back to Cape Town she has become my best friend. We happened to spend an hour in the car together over the weekend. Just me and her. Driving.

And the things she was saying, about how she sees me… well, they were pretty awesome.  You know, the way that I see it, my life happened – when I was a youngster, and my folks got divorced, there wasn’t really anything I could do to make things “better”. That’s how things were. I accepted them, made the most of it and moved on.

She sees me as this person who has had a shit life, and as someone who has come through the otherside, not just surviving, but as someone who should be (and is) proud of everything achieved. She was saying to me that I could have, and possibly should have, been someone on drugs etc, etc. My mom lives in another town, another country, my father does not support me in any way… and yet, yet I still am doing well in my job, studying hard and moving forward, striving to be the best that I can be.

She seemed, not awed, but impressed that I had not gone the “wrong” way. I said to her, well, I had many choices to make when I was younger, and I made them. I am not the type to sit and regret the things I have or haven’t done – this is the way that things are, and I am moving towards where I want to be.

I guess the thing that has always been there for me…. is that I don’t want to turn out like my father. That has been my driving force since I started working.  I want to have money for a rainy day. I want to be able to feed my all of my children on a regular basis. I want to be there for my children as they grow up. Spoil them with love… not money.

I also have quite a strict boss you know… I’m pretty hard on myself, and I don’t like failure… my other problem is that I am also scared of success. I watched Akeelah and the Bee yesterday… such a heart warming movie… there’s a quote in there, I can’t remember who wrote it – but it goes along the lines of: “We are not afraid of failure, but rather of success. Who are you to be gorgeous, clever, etc… actually who are you not to be?” I need to find that damn thing. Its going to be my mantra for the next few months I’ve decided.

Anyway, back to the point. My cousin sees me as someone who escaped, resisted or ignored all the “easy” doors and is proud of where and who I am. She sees me as someone who could have gone completely down hill, and yet, here I stand, I’m not on drugs, I did not accidentally fall pregnant… I made it through almost unscathed – I am “balanced”. What she doesn’t understand is that I never gave myself the option. I didn’t want to be dependant on anyone or anything. I needed to make it for myself. I needed to be able to count on someone. And that someone was me. I was the only constant in my life. Throughout my youth, yes, my brother was there, but then he left, I moved around, he moved around – we were always in each others life, but we both learned, the hard way, that all we could count on was ourselves.

That I think is the reason I am the way I am. Even now, being with the most amazing man. There may be times when he doesn’t want to follow, lead or walk besides me and I will have to do things alone. I expect and accept this. Because that is who I am.

The nice thing though? Mostly I will never have to walk alone again. I have my family with me now. My friends. They will hold my hands… yes, both of them… But should the need ever arise. I know that I am able to walk alone along my path… and I also know that I am now able to ask. a lesson hard to learn. but magical nontheless.

Another mail I received…

Mindset

As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

“Well,” he said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” My friend was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before? So make an attempt to grow further…. Why shouldn’t we try it again?

“YOUR ATTEMPT MAY FAIL, BUT NEVER FAIL TO MAKE AN ATTEMPT.”

Just because that’s how it worked then, doesn’t mean that that is how it works now…

Time passing

I can’t believe its been nearly 2 weeks since I’ve written up here. And I’ve really missed it.

An update of things – well, I still haven’t heard from my father – he’s probably waiting for me to phone and apologise, and I, well, I’m not going to do that… and at the same time I am not holding my breathe while I wait for him to call me. I guess we’re at a stalemate.  But like I said to my sister – I’m tired of trying and trying all the time, and everytime I try, well, my help or whatever is accepted for a while, and then it gets thrown out. I get thrown out. And it makes me feel like a little girl being kicked to the curb. And I need to protect the little me from the likes of my father… so I’m just not going to put myself in that situation anymore.

I am however “talking” to my sister. We are sending mails to each other – and I’m trying to be as honest with her as possible about how I see her, or what I think she needs, while at the same time building her up and offering my hand. I won’t pick up the phone to call her as she tends not to answer my calls… but email seems somehow to be working. I have also (I think) made it quite clear to her that I am here if she needs me, but I’m not prepared to go out on a limb. and perhaps one day she’ll understand that.

Work has gone mad. I have been doing things I’ve been wanting to and dreaming of doing for AGES! And it is keeping me very busy and very focused on all of my left brain activities… task after task after task. list of things I need to do… and another list of things that I just can’t… wow. its been busy.

My journalism course is going great. We’ve been getting homework… we had 5 pictures that we had to write about, and then from those pictures we had to come up with a theme/plot/storyline… I’ll post those soon! But I didn’t manage to scan the photo’s…. so I will give a brief explanation of each of the photo’s before I post the writings!

Time passess… and people heal. People change. People grow.

A lot has happened on the surface,  but inside me, there is more. I am even more still inside than I was. I don’t have all these “why’s” or “hows” etc running through my head. I only have quiet. I can focus and concentrate on the things that need doing without getting dramatic about moments that are going on in my life.

I’m finding that I am picking up more and more on other’s feelings – making them my own – sometimes its very difficult to seperate what I’m feeling and what others are feeling – its almost as though I am them… and I can feel things. mostly I know that its not me, because I don’t have a reason to be angry at the world, or frustrated at myself… because I am, when alone, content… I do not doubt myself, or my abilities. I am like the little train engine that could… I think I can, I think I can, I know I can…

I only need to learn to seperate my stuff from others… when I do have my moments… and hopefully I don’t have the ability to “implant” what I am feeling into them the way their feelings seem to implant to me…  Its confusing, but at the same time incredibly interesting trying to read the feelings and see where they’re coming from… For example, I can feel all the aches and pains in my body, and I listen to them to see what is going on in my body… when I ovulate, I feel it. I know that almost as soon as I ovulate, my breasts are sore – they remain that way for 2 to 3 weeks – right up until the last day of my period.

I am and have been listening to my body for quite a long time now… and to feel these alien feelings, to feel my pulse rate increase, butterflies in my stomach, when I am feeling calm or have no reason to be nervous, tense or stressed… Its incredibly interesting to see myself like that, to feel these alien feelings… to make them my own, when they truly don’t belong to me… Now all I need to do is SEPERATE them! To realise, understand and seperate before they boggle my mind… but I guess that that will happen, the more aware I am of my body, the more aware I will become and the more I will know what is mine and what is not…

What you put in is what you put out

I know that its been a while (again) since i’ve visited my space here.. ok, so 1 week isn’t to bad.

And in that time, well, in the time since I last wrote, well, I’ve had a really great chat with both my mother and brother about my father. And well, decisions are as they are. And this one isn’t really mine to make. Ok, I’m lying. It is. What have I decided?

Well, in terms of my father… I’ve decided to leave things for now. I just get upset, and its not really worth it anymore. So. I am trying a new tactic. One that doesn’t worry about when he may call, or whether or not he loves me etc, etc, etc.

He made it clear that my opinions and thoughts are not welcome, and I suppose he is entitled to it. I don’t think I over reacted, I just got quite a fright, realising how strong his “anti” feelings were. That’s all. I should have seen it coming…

So. If he phones me, then he phones me. I won’t be rude or impolite, but I also won’t let him get to me anymore. If I don’t agree with something, I say so, but I won’t be emotional about it anymore. This is for him to sort through, he doesn’t need his daughter telling him what he should or shouldn’t do.

The only really crap thing is that it is my sister who is suffering through all of this. My baby sister. (19 yr old…). And she is “tired of fighting with family”. What she hasn’t yet realised yet is that I’m not fighting with her, I’m trying to guide her – perhaps I’m not doing it in a way that she will compute, but I (was) doing it the only way I knew how. by telling, talking, and showing frustrations. She said that she’d heard what I had said to our father, and she no longer wanted to fight.

And I responded, saying that I have a problem with her lies… something she knows about because I’ve spoken to her about it before. The fact that she lies upsets me more than if she was just honest with me in the first place. If she fucked something up, tell me. Don’t lie about it… because then I have to deal with the fuck up and the disrespect of the lie. No.

I said that she had heard about a conversation that was had from one side, and if she wanted to ask me about it she was more than welcome to. And then I told her that I will always be her big sister and I will always love her.

I’m not sure when I will speak to either of them again. And the reality is… that, for now, I’m actually ok with it. Yes, I might be putting all this in that little box of “things I don’t want to think about” right now… and one day the jack will spring and this may just come tumbling out… But I’m smiling and laughing and loving again.

I realised that, no matter what my father said to me, or says in the future, I know who I am. I know what I am. And he can’t take that away from me. I am still the same person standing here, regardless of how he feels or what he thinks about me. My barrier is up. He cannot cross. Hopefully the barrier is only up for him… and not for everyone else… but I still feel so full of love for my Monkey and Baby G and my kitty’s… so I reckon the barrier is in just the right place…

The heading of this post is so not what I actually wrote about… Grin. It was going to be about STATS of the blog!!! Duh well… perhaps tomorrow.