"We live our lives according to stories. about being irish or being black. about working hard or shooting heroin. being male or female. and we spend our lives looking for evidence--facts and proof--that support our story. as a writer, you just recognize that part of human nature. each time you create a character, you look at the world as that character, looking for the details that make that reality that one true reality." -chuck palahniuk
life is full of stories. these are the stories we make for ourselves. we constanty are composing and constructing details of our claimed identity. i think that we inherently not only set our goals of academia, but of what and how we define ourselves. all encompassing, we seek to find our being as an entity.
first, we choose whether we want to live our lives happy or bitter. second, we choose our choice of education, of music, of friends, of romance, of talents, of habits and even our choice of drug. thirdly, we choose the channel we go about to reach this goal of claimed identity...this goal of one true reality. and lastly...(i guess i have yet to acknowledge this last step, if there even is one)my one true reality being that i'm simply kim bautista. i nag. i complain. i mock. i shittalk.
oh well, that's what i do, but that's not who i am. tonight, i was doing a myspace survey (of course!) and the last question was "are you you proud of the person you've become?" i actually love the person i'm becoming. surprisingly even for me, i've realized that my last bitter, melancholical blog was so much about certain priorities i've set so far up on my "list." and yeah, i do realize that we're going to constantly re-invent ourselves and it's this inevitable cycle that we seemingly are stuck in, but i know that even through all the phases i'm going to go through, my faith, my values, and what i've learned so far in life never will die. these past three years have been hard...real hard, and this age range of 15-22 is full of tears, police encounterments, deceit, fall outs, chemically enduce substances, assholes, deaths, truth, but i guess that really is the beauty of it all. these are the things that make us grow, the things that make us realize that the life we have now is not and never will be like the carefree lives we had when we were 7 and naive. and boy have i grown, evolved and learned. even though i'm only roughly 19 years old, i've experienced so much of the hardships that life has to offer. even though i've lived in the suburbs most of life; i've unwilling in some way, shape and form been faced with divorce, rape, handcuffs, deaths, heartbreaks, contemplations, "freak outs,". and all these unfortunate (but maybe deserving) events have culminated into an ocean full of my tears. i can't even count how many nights i cried myself to sleep. but i would never change any of it, not one bit. what's the point? sure, i never pictured it to happen to me, and it definately wasn't ever part of the channel i wanted to go through, but it sure is a part of my identity that i would never change.
i never would change the lifestyle i currently am in right now. i love being away from my parents, not solely because i think 18 years was enough for me, but because i've learned to live on my own. i've learn that they're not always going to be there to motivate you, to tell you what to do and what not to do. they can't always tell you where your priorities should be and what's best for you. you have learn to grow up. and to learn to choose what's best for you. i love going to school and work practically full time. it's thought me a lot about managing my time. being at work has taught me that sometimes you're going to have to do things that you don't want to do. but having been working since i was 16, i've learned that sometimes you can't always be financially dependent on your parents. and maybe you can, but why would you want to be. having a job is not just about being responsible with your finances, but of yourself. i've learned to take care of my wholebeing and my responsibilites. i've learned that money isn't easy to make. making coffee for people 28 hours a week isn't that fun, and it really does suck when you spend have the money you earned on people who don't do shit. it gets frustrating never being able to say no. it really does feel like shit. you start to wonder if they're just using you. but besides me always getting off tangent, i like making my own money. i really don't like asking my parents for extra money. i know that i just started college, and that i need to focus on school. but i can do both, and even if i didn't have a job, face it kim, you would still be spending the same amount of time with school that you woul'dve with a job. so, why not take it on. i like the feeling of living away from my parents, having a job, and going to school. it helps me grow and gives me a sense of what reality is going to be like in 10 years. yeah, it'll be way harder than it is right now, having a real occupation and all, but at least i won't be competely naive to that kind of living. yeah, i don't have to worry about car, house, insurance payments but i still have to worry about being able to live; go to school, and go out to do miscellaneous shit. even though so much of me wants to hold onto my past and my childhood, more of me wants to grow up already. i don't want feel cheated out of life, out of growing up.
and that is me, give or take. that is my one true reality. my goal is to be the best that i can be for me and for no one else.
