Will we ever understand or stop striving to understand our parents?

A wise friend said to me the other day, ‘Rosie, we will never, not matter how hard we try, understand our parents.’ I started to think, will we? After all how much do we really actually know about our parents? And how much do we compare ourselves to them? ‘It’s because they’ve got a unique relationship to you. They’ve got a unique relationship, more to you than anyone else,’ she said.  Caught in a bad romance, oops just heard the acoustic version off some sound device. Back to reality, yes, it could be some Freudian theory maybe, though let’s be honest, is it really about us wanting to suck our mother’s nipple? Nah, we just want to know that ‘things’ are cool with our parents at all times and then we feel slightly less anxious or maybe so far as absolute in ourselves. After having an argument with my mother for what seemed like years, in reality minutes, after being fine with her for months, I felt ready to renounce myself – for the bigger judgment had come and granted me unworthy. Evidently they are our biggest example to lead by, like a God in some way, so in order to disobey is either rebellion or complete confusion. Another friend said: ‘People strive for the ideal family, but go through different things anyway, like the father who supports the family won’t lose his job, or his wife might die or might become ill, all that will influence his relationship with the parent to the child. Depending on how that parent reacts is between, maybe neglectful or compassionate shown to different degrees so you can’t really wholly express a mass ideal of the parent and as well if you consider historic context people in more affluent families would spend a lot of their developmental time away from their parents, maybe with their nannies, so their relationships to their children are wholly down to their own experiences.’ Although slightly eschewed and alcohol strung, my friend made a good point. The point he made was different to that of my other friend, and again, just brings me back to the unique volume of relationships we all have to our parents. That’s just it, we can’t judge, because they are all different and only our individual selves just know how to roll with it.  

The defeminisation

As I put on my big comfy boots and wrestle with the idea of putting on a dress or not, I finish a phone call ‘catch you later, man.’ The dress can wait another day, the attempted flirtatious advances from the boy down the road ignored and the music plugged in, Nirvana or Portico Quartet? Were the high postured smiley walks down the road a thing of the past, the hair rearrangement with that special passer-by gone? I don’t know, I’m just walking down the road to the shop, o look the sea in the distance, that’s nice. Why bother about menial topics such as turning on my sex vibe? I’ve got my friends, my work, my mind. What seemed to occupy my sense of being has dissipated into the past like an enjoyable mystery gone silent. Although, I noticed it this morning as I put on my mascara that on some sub level, I do care still, just, I feel completely defeminised by this town. Rarely am I compelled into instant attraction, like I was so before, that I actually did something about it. Must sound like some awkward single cry out for help, though more it’s the enquiry as to what the hell happened? Is this defeminisation or disinterest? I still practice the feminine routines, in self-pruning, a healthy level of vanity and an awareness of sexuality. Though males do this too. I just focus a lot more on other stuff, though in the process have misplaced something somewhere. My male friend comes in ‘I should start knitting, that would be amazing.’ Hmm, maybe there is some sort of sexual distortion here.

The 'top' man

We are only but an amalgamation of different beings which keeps your soul alive. You do not feel us, warrant us any credit, and though, surely by some way inherit our laughter as a token to show of your appreciation for friendship, just because you are so great. Hit us with your strong beautiful words that linger around in the atmosphere for days with silent merit. We dare not mention it too much amongst us. We all learn from you, though you fear us, we really fear your judgment and beg on our knees for your approval. Hold us, in your thoughts, please, and please blend your respect for us in with your luscious creativity. Wow, we are all just selfish beings. O god, acid, not that bloody conversation again.

That kind - the soul searching stuff....a very late re draft, with a more personal touch

In writing a text, I was asked to recall a moment in time of my life and criticise it. I guess that moment was meant to be one that inspired me and made me change my mental attitude towards what I thought before, thus the importance in writing and applying a critical text. I pondered many moments to write about as many have been life changing, although being too cliché, I picked the least and wrote about a Peruvian experience I had with a local boy on top of a mountain. Notice a hint of sarcasm? I was dishonest  in thinking to myself that this would fit the brief, so now I shall re write it using a psychoanalytic approach to what moments I feel now and how they have rather drastically changed from my former self to the current person I inhabit.​

I recall moments of complete joy and solitude in the past, where I fell in love or when I hugged a new born puppy. Also when I was close to my mother and we spent days and days together idealising our perfect selves after she left my father. I recall excitement and desire whilst pondering men and suspense in waiting for communication from a many fancied men. The many relationships I had with others, where never ending trust and appreciation was had which was unquestioned. I recall the first time I discovered sex and on a negative note, in such a way that I was disgusted by my body and my decision making that I refused men for two years. In sadness I then recall the tears rolling down my sisters helpless face after cutting herself so much that there was no more space on her arms to cut. I recall the beer and spit all over me in the street with laughing faces mocking me and waiting till next time, I recall the pain in a broken heart with no hope at all in how to mend it and I recall the many, many decisions that sliced my brain in half making it insufficient to use anymore. 

There is a theory that the brain changes the most chemically from the ages of 18 to 21, which in a sense is why we begin the transition of childhood into adulthood at this particular age. All the emotions, decisions, attitudes and particular characteristics of one person cement themselves into the brain and help us define ourselves more than ever before, ready for the future. In mind of this theory, I have used it to shed light on a transfer of one mind to another; mine. In the past, I never recalled much aggression and anger to the point it became physical and manifested itself. I always use to have a relief button which slipped up from the surface in need of a break from overwhelming emotions and was there to press. I always had an escape or an empathetic ear who wouldn't worry too much about me. I never needed drugs to stop my brain from working in one way, because I always had the sense in which to rationalise any mental issue. I felt joy often, sadness, jealousy, empowerment, success, fear, pain and pleasure.

Though now I can't quite place a label on any emotion I feel as these are so new and difficult to define. The ups, the lows. The unbearable light that wakes me up in the morning, in tescos, in the cheeriness behind smiled eyes and the complete innocence behind the pointing finger of blame. The beautiful flowers that bloom out of gardens hardly kept, the moment of engagement of a particular text, the freedom behind choice. I find these moments winding themselves around my mind, gaping in and out of each other careful not to let each other know they exist. In between all there is, is just a dark space, a circus laying dormant just for the mental structure – waiting to explode and perform when needed.

In short and to conclude, the moment in which I wish to analyse and apply a critical approach is the moment I lost in time, and I am not sure exactly when, when I lost control in knowing the reality behind any moment. A circus has always been at the back of my mind, waiting to perform at will, whereas now the circus is used only for stability of mind, for routine. The extravaganzas, the popcorn and smiling faces, the applaude so loud it shook the tent, the many many colours all cease to exist now and are lost in the past, having dissapated into a dream which is waiting desperately to be dreamt again.

Orgasm

An orgasm is a beautiful thing.

It rids of hunger or highlights it in your mind.

It makes you sing out loud or in your head.

It makes you work and sweat or lie in your own filfth.

Regardless, it does not matter because it has been had.

Anti English binge rant

Having spent so much time speculating drinking and university drinking with many long winded discussions over tea and walking down the street with different companions, I have come to some conclusions. The year before this moment of writing, a glimpse into the past of many years before too, has been fab. A party full of excessive bottles of wine,cider, spirits, more cider, drugs, cigarettes, rollies and more drugs. I have drunk past the point of memory loss for nights I cannot even date and have spent many an evening on one bottle of wine for just a chilled 'one in'. Although the drugs took their toll and intoxicated my mind with depression, vulgarity and inability to function on too many levels and after a large depression of the soul I stopped. I also find now that I have stopped drinking as much as well. In this I have realised that gone are the days of mass consumption for pleasure and the cool label of saying to people the next day in college : 'Yeah, I got fucked last night, I don't even know what I did and I can't even see straight, this lecture is bollocks.' Gone are the days where I had the destructive nature to get myself lost in so many intoxicants that I found it funny to be found by friends in odd locations such as back alleys or passed out in a bed. Gone are the days of thoughts that only evolve around what alcohol is the cheapest or what drugs can last me the longest.

Don't get me wrong, I still love to go out and drink and enjoy myself but there's a new perspective I find that has creeped out of my experiences, especially as a fresher, which have made me find large distaste and even want to renounce my English heritage when it comes to the English drinking culture. The mentality, for a start, of completing losing one's mind as often as possible in order to get the best of a night out. The freezing weather which either shakes up or precipitates over naked girls walking down the streets longing for warmth and comfort but insisting on more shots. The depression of a hangover wasting a whole day and making reality incromphensible to appreciate and the jealousy of those who can look fresh faced and ready for anything even though they were the most 'fucked' the night before. The mountainous number of calories swimming through your body and placing themselves in every crook and cranny and further such intoxicants sticking inside your liver. Though most of all, the memory loss and waking up trying to remember what you did and where you are which happens more and more. So, taking all this into consideration, I have resided myself to drink on a weekend and the occasional weekday, not just for health, but also for mind of passing the degree that I pay nearly 6 grand a year for. Essentially, why I am here in the first place.