[Merenwen's Scrapbook] The Willing Well

[Merenwen]

Sorry, but I have something to rant about, and I'm about to really rage... So children, close your ears. I would just like to say, I don't give a damn who you are, it does NOT by any means give you the right to talk shit to/about anyone. I think that's a huge problem with people these days. They think just because they are older, they're wiser. Just because they're paid more, they're better. Just because they have more, they ARE more. Uhm. No. There's this little thing called equality, and just because you're older (or have more, or what have you) doesn't mean you are always right about something. This is one of those things that not many people seem to get, and frankly don't give a shit about. There's this little thing called a high horse, and they're on theirs. In my opinion, if someone is offended by something, you take it up with them. You don't bitch to everyone around you about it. I don't care if you're the president. I don't care if you're the richest man in the world. I don't care if you're so uptight you have someone else wipe the snot from your stuck up nose. You take it up with the person you've got beef with, and you do it with some respect, whether they've stepped on your toes or called your mama a prostitute. It shouldn't matter who you are or what the situation is. Solve it. Stop bitching. Because I can promise you, no one likes to listen to people bitch about something they won't do anything about. That being said, I'm not asking anyone's opinion. Just throwing mine out there. If that's a problem, why are you even still reading this? Not trying to be mean or anything, but.... Seriously.

[Taln]

Something vexes thee?

[Mesa]

Greatly.

[Mesa]

Well my daddy said when I went away, "Join Alpha Gam and you'll have it made!" I took his advice and I gladly say, "Thank God I'm an Alpha Gam!" Since I joined I can't get enough, Alpha Gamma Delta is the life I love. Sisterhood was sent from above! Thank God I'm an Alpha Gam! We've got a wonderful house with wonderful girls, red and buff roses and fourteen pearls. My life is the best in the world! Thank God I'm an Alpha Gam! Rose, rose, rose, rose. Flower of our fraternity. Symbol of our strength and beauty, of Alpha Gam. Fourteen pearls, on unto a badge of gold. We'll recall to each of our sisters memories of old. We are sisters, bound in friendship we are one. With the Alpha Gamma and Delta, we have begun. Today as we gather in our sisterhood, remembering the moments and times that were good. To you, Alpha Gam, we'll always be true, knowing the love and the friendships we've gained through you. We'll stand together in friendship forever. You'll know who we are by our pin set in pearls. After we've gone and we drift far apart, Alpha Gam will live on in our hearts. Today all the roses still cling to the vine. I'll be your true sister and you will be mine. A million tomorrows shall all pass away, ere I forget all the joy that is mine today. Father, let thy blessings fall on our members one and all. Grant us from day to day to live more nearly as we pray. In our Alpha Gamma Delta we would be faithful unto Thee, dear Lord, in our Fraternity. Let each sister ever be consecrated Lord, to Thee. Help us as life's path we plod, to draw each day still nearer, God. In our Alpha Gamma Delta we would be faithful unto the dear Lord, in our Fraternity. I'm an Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Gamma Do or Die! A real live sister of the double rose, loyal to Epsilon Pi. I'm an Alpha Gamma Delta, and I love to wear those pearls. When I came down to UWG the only thing to do was be one of those Alpha Gamma girls!

[Mesa]

I think all of the excitement of Recruitment coming up has really uplifted me recently. I'm happy that the school year is starting back up (tomorrow!), but at the same time, I'm really nervous. My life came to an uncomfortable series of bumps in the road last year, and it really threw me through a loop. I had family problems, medical problems, friend problems... You name it. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong practically did, and I can't remember going a day without crying myself to sleep. I felt completely pathetic, and just wanted to go back home... I wanted to move back home, and go back to a time when my family helped me with everything, paid for all of my clothes and food... Back to when my daddy used to peek into my room and whisper good night to me, whether I was awake or asleep. I miss waking up and hugging my dad and having a cup of coffee with him before he took me to school. I miss playing "I Spy" with him, and making up words when it was my turn to guess. I miss our inside jokes, our silly wrestling matches, learning to shoot guns, and swimming in the afternoons. I miss my mom packing my lunch, hemming my clothes because I'm so short. I miss her many words of wisdom, and her constant shove in the right direction. I miss making stuff with her, painting together, burning ourselves with hot glue guns. I miss the annual fall trip to the North Georgia mountains. I miss my bed, the smell of my room, the ugly rust colored carpet. I miss the magnolia tree in the front yard, the swing set in the back yard. I miss when things were easy. But it's never coming back. From here, things just get harder, and I'm starting to see that now. The nearly immediate change from being a kid to being an adult wore me thin and hopeless. My grades suffered terribly, and I got so discouraged I basically gave up. Bryan and I started fighting a lot, I stopped taking my medications, I got sick. Friends wandered far, and my dreams seemed to dissipate into nothing. I didn't know what to do besides eat and sleep. I gained 30 lbs, and my self esteem dropped to an all-time low. I turned back to bulimia, and guilt tripped myself after every meal. I stopped going to class, I stopped going to the Alpha Gam house. My room became a mess. My dog seemed to cry for me. This summer I felt like things only got worse, and more than anything I just wanted to go back to a time when things were simple, or to just disappear all together. Neither of those seemed possible, so I took the summer to have fun and relax, even when the walls crashed down on me, and the floor crumbled beneath me. The past two weeks, I have had mandatory sorority recruitment practices. Seeing the scholarly squirrels board with my sisters' names and GPA's on little acorns made me cry inside. I was ashamed that I ever let myself down. I graduate high school with a 3.7 GPA, and I wanted it back. I made up my mind last week that I would bust my ass to make at least a 3.0, and have my name up on that board. I just hope I have what it takes... I guess I'm ranting to continue to put the idea into my head that I want two things this year: 1. Make at least a 3.0 2. Lose some fricken weight. I HAVE to get motivated, and soon, or I'm not gonna make it anywhere in life... And that's a shitty thing to realize. This goes out to all of you who have ever felt completely overwhelmed and alone. You're not.

[Mesa]

Loyally in Eps ilon Pi ...

[Gossamer]

Turning 20 is rough for everyone. But the truth is, and everyone I know agrees with this who is 30 or above, that as time passes, things just get more and more fabulous. It looks hard now, but once you grow into your own, settle into your adult life, and go on that big soul search that's out there - life becomes amazing. This most likely will take the majority of the next ten years. Its a harder road than college, than grade school and high school, and is certainly harder than being a kid.

Life is worth it though. '

You'll look back and scream with joy and laugh at yourself and all your anxiety and know for a fact how things work and why they are what they are. You'll want to turn cartwheels and chase butterflies and spin in place in a _great_ skirt and live laugh and love with the best of them. I think that is our reward, the next 30 years, for the first shitty thirty years of our lives.

[Mesa]

The hardest part is, I know you're right. It's just so unfathomably hard to imagine, you know? Being only 19, on the edge of 20, I'm a college kid wound up in college life and petty problems. I listen to what my mother and father say, and what you say, and what every adult around me says. But when I try to look forward, I try to tell myself it's real, and that one day I will have a family of my own. I'll look back on these days and shake my head and laugh, for sure. And yet, it seems like light years away. I know I must sound ridiculous, but I think I get caught up in the little stuff as much as I do the big stuff. I try not to let things get to me, but I have a terrible habit of jumping to conclusions. I have always been one to shoot first and ask questions later, so to speak. It's tough, for me. It's hard not to wonder how others cope, considering we are all so very different. Right now I tell myself I'm ready to be past the first shitty 30 years you speak of. And yet I know, without a doubt in my heart, mind, and soul, that when those days come, I will look back on these and wish I hadn't hurried them along.

[Gossamer]

I think that's what 'having faith' is all about.

[Kamalia Timandre]

I remember a year or two ago that we had a talk like this, Jen, and you comforted me with the very same words.

I think I understand how you feel, Merenwen, and just like you, I miss the days when I was young, when everything seemed beautiful. Some people call this the "quarter-life crisis", where we are uncertain of a lot things. We'll have our fair share of goodbyes and farewells, and the emotional upheavals, the changes around us, the uncertainty can be sometimes overwhelming, but I think that's what will make us tough. We struggle to cope with career, school, relationships, and finances. We sometimes feel that we are "trapped", and we lack meaningful work. We compete with thousands of people for our job, trying to find time to juggle our relationships, and feel that our dreams slowly slip away from our fingers.

But this is also a time of self-discovery. It is necessary to make mistakes, but we must always move forward. Like you, I have faith that someday we'll look back on these and laugh.