I care about not hurting people and peacefully abiding under the firm tyranny of Karma. I care about protecting people I love. I care about sometimes loving somebody else too far, to my detriment, but never regretting the experience because true love is always worth it. I care about understanding my world, myself, and THE world. I care about other people’s choice to be ignorant, because I believe that making the choice to be ignorant is wrong and affects everything around you. I believe that knowing the consequences and making a decision based on your personal values is right, and the correct alternative to feigning or forcing your own ignorance.
I care about gay rights. Mostly because all people deserve to live equally – no special treatment of any kind. Universal rights entails that all people have the right to marry – marriage having become a lot more culturally and societaly than a purely religious act – and women having the same kind of reproductive rights as men - and therefore, the same control over their lives as men have over their own. But universal rights also entails that “straight-ness” is just as normal and subtle a character trait as “gay-ness”: If Billy is gay, that should necessarily mandate that he introduces himself as “Billy the Flamboyant Queen”. His sexual preferences should be just as under-cover and unimportant as Jane Smith the straight chick. Example: “Hi, My name is Maddie. My favorite color is Blue, I have blonde hair, I want to go into fashion design, I like girls, My cat’s name is Mittens, and I love Tapioca pudding.” Was that so hard? I object to any pressure that makes gay or lesbian or just any kind of minority-group human being define themselves purely by their minority status. It’s the same as women who get so obsessed with “Girl Power” as to start screaming “Down With Men!” every time somebody holds the door open for their fellow human being, or the overly-sensitive race-centric person we all know who takes any personal conflict of theirs and turns it into the world being racist against them when in reality, maybe they’re just arguing about a difference in opinions or a miscommunication. I object to defining yourself with the characteristic you fight hard to not be defined by.
I care about reflecting on life as you go through it. Journals are wonderful snapshots into your head in the past, but I for one can never keep one nice and regular-like. I keep a calendar with events so that I can remember when my memories occurred, but I can’t write down feelings on a regular basis. (I rant for pages before I can stop and move on to a new topic, so journaling takes me like an hour at least. I ain’t got an hour a day for that! Ain’t nobody got time for that.) But I care about stepping outside your day to day life and just saying “Hey. Things are going really well for me in this part of my life. Take a breath and remember how this feels, okay? You might need it for later.” I still remember one time in October 2010 when I was excited and nervous and falling in love, honest-to-God, True Love with the Boy and I was about to leave for a bonfire where excitement and flirting would occur, and I noticed my giddiness so I stopped in the middle of my room, put down what I was holding and just took a breath. I said “Chrissy, you won’t always feel this way, and I want you to be able to remember how happy you are right now, and how this feels. This kind of utter joy doesn’t last forever – savor it right now.” And I can’t quite remember how it feels to be so joyfully falling in love, but I remember it better than I would have if I hadn’t tried to remember it. And I also remember exactly what I was looking at in my room and the angle at which I was viewing it when that thought came to me: A snapshot memory formed, and that’s how I know how important that moment was. (You only form snapshot memories when you are filled with a rush of adrenaline or strong emotion.)
Memories are important to me. I archive the texts I deem important in my phone by sitting down for hours once every few months and typing them out into a word document. I don’t have a way to archive them other than that (I don’t have a smart phone). But I save everything that has a memory: Love Letters come in all mediums these days, from facebook messages to texts to 4 hour phone calls in your bathroom at 3 am. <3 (That was my first year with the Boy, who I’m clearly feeling very sentimental about lately/for the last 3 months and getting stronger.) I save everything because Love Letters are the one thing worth holding on to forever. I have tens of thousands of facebook messages archived on my computer (with a program, thank god!) and once I get a smart phone, I can automatically archive my texts on my computer too. I like to hold on to the sweet things.
Food is important to me. I love food. I am also too lazy to get up and feed myself most of the time. This causes quite the dilemma, as I’m sure many of you may imagine. I usually wind up going without my beloved food simply out of laziness, which I find ironic since food cures laziness with energy and sustenance sometimes.
Happiness is important to me. Happiness comes in many forms: Cuddles, make out sessions, painting a white canvas with black paint, getting your makeup JUST right, having somewhere to go on a Friday night that makes you feel awesome, a bouquet of flowers on opening night, not fucking up your terrifying role in the spot light, twirling through stage-fog in a sequined skirt while hitting the right note, your favorite pair of old character shoes, your director thanking you for a good idea, your mother approving of your work on stage and giving you the best 18th birthday present a girl could ask for, an empty house plus a warm bed with a lover waiting for you, a fuzzy blanket and a good movie, a tall glass of Horchata plus a Friends episode, an extra-long feeling episode of SMASH <3, finding a new Perfect Song, watching your loved one smile and feeling overjoyed that he’s now happy because of you instead of sad, being better at something(s) than that one person you HAVE to just… make obsolete… because you really cannot stand her… at all…
… when your mom backs you up and totally gossips on your side about some girl you don’t like that she coincidentally doesn’t like either, getting picked up in a limo for breakfast in NYC, getting complimented on your work by actors that you respect more than your own teachers or instructors, sunshine and short-shorts, rhinestones, relaxing into a craft project, did I mention cuddling?, and when you make it through a test or project without having read the book. Having read the book. Speaking french well. Blue Jello, surprise candy, surprise money, when your new class ring fits, when you get mail, LED lightup stuff, rainbow stuff, dark lipstick, when you figure out that you don’t need lash-implants just a new tube of mascara, when you get stuff done in time to sleep (hahaha nope), when you read a new comic that you find hilarious or touching, when your skin feels soft and you remember how in middle school your skin was so rough you felt so self-conscious and hadn’t a clue how to fix it, when you remember Lizzie McGuire and/or Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, when you get deja-vu really clearly and remember that you are probably psychic since you dream everything before it happens, when you successfully laugh off an awkward moment, when you pet your cat and it actually has been feeling neglected so it like the petting and comes towards you without scratching, when you have time to just sit and stare.
More lists of happiness to come. I feel like that’s healthy. And that matters to me.
Thus do I care. About things. The end.
PS I also DON’T care about the porn star that stole my name, who is based in San Diego, and will ruin my chances of ever successfully applying for a job. The End.
