Who Is Eire

 Who am I?

 I am a shadow of secrets
 Crying out in the dead of night.

 I am that girl you don't notice
 The one with the sad eyes.
 That one who does not sparkle.

 Must I sparkle?
 Would you love me
 If I was earth, and not glitter?

 Sillycrazysadpassionangrypeacefulamusedcaring.

 It's true. I love with reservations. How sad. 
 I throw myself into danger like sugar into the cup. I am that danger.
 It's easier, sometimes, to risk your life than to risk your heart.

Shy. An easy label for me to put onto myself. Convenient, to escape possible wrath and humilation with only a few words: "I'm sorry, I'm just shy." It's like hiding behind a disability. Didn't you know that handicaps can be shields? Like bad hearing, or depression, or being small and weak.

I'm not weak. Can I prove it?

(the phoenix scuffles the ashes, disguised as a strawberry flower.)

Am I only who I pretend to be?

12-5-01

I was born with a broken heart.

12-22-01

If I don't know who am I or what I want to do, at least I know who I don't want to be and what I don't want to do. Maybe it's like chiseling a sculpture, scraping away the extra stuff that one should not have to deal with.

For instance. I know that I don't want to be the person always cleaning up other people's crap. I know I'm good at it, I know people turn to me and say (in not so many words) "clean this up, because I don't feel like it, and by the way, I need to be comforted", and if I wasn't so "nice", I would say in so many words fuck off and clean it up yourself. I don't care if I'm a Virgo. I don't care if I'm a perfectionist. I don't want a career that involves comforting people who fuck themselves over, I don't want a career picking newspapers off the floor because people are too lazy to do it themselves, I don't want to make a career out of saying "you're welcome" just because people say "thank you".

You are not welcome to stomp on me! Even as I stomp on myself.

Do I want to make order out of chaos? You bet I do. But I want to do it because I care about something or someone with all my heart... not because other people are lazy and I'm not, not even because I'm being paid to do it. If someone I loved had the courage to cry in front of me, I would dry their tears a thousand times. If I made a sacred place and it was trashed, I would clean it up. That's different my heart made it mine? You know?

Then there's that factor of being "nice". Being nice to the point of lying, to the point where I'm not true to myself. And it's true, I've been conditioned to be that way... I don't know how, or why, but it seems that there are two extremes here. I can be a doormat, or I can be a bitch, and neither appeal to me.

I'm nice because I want to be loved by other people. That is a truth.

I'm also nice because I don't want to deal with the power struggles and conflicts that would arise from me being a bitch whenever I didn't care for how someone acts. I'd rather ignore most of the crap and go about my own business. That is another truth.

Funny thing is that when I stop putting up with people's crap, and tell them to go away (sometimes in those words, sometimes not) they still think I'm a nice little girl. They say: "Fiesty little thing, aren't you?" and laugh. Sometimes I like keeping it to myself that I'm a strong, capable person, that I can take care of myself, that I only put up with other people's shit because I'm busy working towards a goal of my own and I don't want to get distracted by a power struggle. And then there are times where I see people smiling and saying "Eireann is a very sweet girl", and sometimes nicely making fun of me for being such a "sweet girl"... never thinking that there could be more to me than that surface image.

It makes me mad!!

 "I'm nobody! Who are you?  
 Are you nobody, too?  
 Then there's a pair of us-- don't tell!  
 They'd banish us, you know.  
   
 How dreary to be somebody!
 How public, like a frog  
 To tell your name the livelong day  
 To an admiring bog!"

Emily Dickenson

 I'm alone.
 Do you understand?
 No you don't.
 Would you understand if I wrote it in capitals?
 Scratch it on my skin? Until the blood came?
 -I'm Alone-!
 No you don't.
 You can't understand.
 You don't fucking understand!!!
 Are you alone?
 I never see you alone
 My blinders are heavy... like my heart.

1-28-02

Okay. Let's talk more about my insignifigance. You don't want to hear about this? Too fucking bad. Because this is a topic that interests me very, very much, and I'm not going to be putting it to rest just yet. Let me give a few examples of what I'm talking about here.

The cinema. I used to be overshadowed by my friend R., who was kind of the manager there and knew a lot about the computer and all, so when I started I'd sell candy and clean up. Occassionally, there would be times when I wanted to learn more, but with him convieniently there all the time, I didn't get the chance. After he left, however, I found that when I had to I could learn everything I needed to, and quickly. My boss grew to trust me with more things, and I liked the importance of being in charge. I could have been the manager myself if I had had more of a commitment to the place. Then L. stepped in, and he's a fucking genius. Again, I was completely overshadowed. With L. there, I'm back to selling candy and cleaning up, and whenever I try to assert myself and do more, they don't notice. It's always "I'll handle this" and "here, stick to the simple things", as if I'd never been able to do more than the simplest tasks. I remember one incident where someone needed their money back, and I was about to give it to them when my boss intervened and he said "Actually, we have to wait until our cashier comes back".... as if I'd never been a cashier! As if I couldn't even give refunds! On another occassion, these two girls came in wanting a job there, and I appealed to L. to convince the boss, because I knew he would be listened to and I wouldn't. God knows I've tried. And god knows I've worked hard enough to deserve it just as much as L.

Aikido. When class starts and no black belts have come in, Sensei asks the highest belt to lead the class in the exersizes. There have been quite a few times when I've been the highest belt, but he looks at me and then asks someone else to lead. Even when I've offered to lead the class, I never get the chance. Though I am highly respected there, I'm never put in a position to lead.

Coffeeshop. I'm treated more fairly there than anywhere else, but there is still one problem. I've been working there for almost four months, and I have never been put on "shift-leader" even though I've shown that I'm completely capable of it.

The little things add up. And though it's most prevailant in work, it shows up often in my personal life as well, and all around how people regard me. For once, for once, I would love to be trusted with important things. I would love to be needed as more than a menial worker or an errand runner. And why am I not? Why?? Is it because I'm small? Is it because I'm female? What am I lacking? Do I really have that much of a doormat mentality that I just let people run over me all the time? Well.... yes. A very few people tell me to assert myself, I know I don't do it enough. And it's not like I don't want to... and it's not that I can't... but there is just one, teeny tiny little fear factor to consider here: failure. The truth is that I have little more confidence in myself than most people do in me, and as long as I am filled with doubts about my abilities I will go nowhere.

Here we come to the chicken and the egg question. Which comes first? Do I become a confident, important person respected by other important and confident people and all my doubts fade away? Or will I have to conquer every single facet of my fear before I can be respected by anyone else? Problem: it takes a lifetime to conquer fear. Solution: wait for the next life.

So here we come to apathy, where the constant state of mind goes something like this: He can do anything better than me, so why bother trying to stand out? But I'd like to smash his perfect little face in so obviously I haven't accepted my position. And that's where I am now. Run over by other people, but not enough of a doormat to accept that it's supposed to be that way, so instead of a bland resignation inside of me, I have a slowly simmering but potentially no, already dangerous rage. And if no one listens when I speak, what do I do then? I resort to drastic measures.

Which leaves me with only a few choices.

• I go from simply angry to psychotic and delusional and end up in a mental hospital for the rest of my life.
• I accept that this is the way my life is supposed to be, and become another doormat of a woman who accepts any abuse that comes her way.
• I do something important and heroic that catches everyone's attention and makes them think twice about me. Assuming I can actually focus and get it done without sabotaging myself in the process.

(and while we're on the topic, who is sabotaging who? is it my environment that has given me this to struggle with, or did I shape this situation myself? In English: do they treat me like this because I have such poor confidence in myself, or do I have such poor confidence in myself because of the way they've treated me? Fucking chicken. Fucking egg.)

God, what a mess.

So I was talking about the aforementioned problems to Mom, who I can always count on to be mostly unbiased about these things. She's also a working woman, and can relate to some of these things. Her last answer was this:

"You must ditch anything that makes you a little girl in other people's eyes."

Which leads me to wonder: what is it about me that makes me a little girl? I have the idea it has something to do with self-confidence, or lack-thereof. But honestly, to those who tell me to "be more confident", I will answer that self-confidence does not grow on trees, thank you very much! Where it does grow, I have no idea. I've always felt more confident when I'm in the spotlight, being complimented and recognized by other people... but maybe that's a false confidence, a performer's high.

For one of the first times in my life okay, maybe the first time I have problems with being a girl. It seems to me that once you're born a boy, you have a natural advantage. People will expect you to work hard and use your brain, and they give you credit for it. If you're born a girl, you have to struggle against all kinds of obstacles to achieve the same thing. Solution? Become a boy. Well, okay, that has it's benefits. Problem? I don't feel like a male. I think if I acted like a male, I'd only see myself as a poser, which wouldn't do much for the self-confidence thing. But staying feminine, and having power? Impossible! Females have no power unless they can be partially masculine as well. The only feminine power worth writing home about is the ability to give birth, which is grossly underrated in this age. If only I'd been born male! A big, assertive male like the Mr. Perfects I'm always competing against. Then all this would be a moot point.

But the truth is that all I want to be is myself, and I mostly like who I am. The problems arise from the world around me, how I've been treated and shaped. I don't want to have to change myself drastically to be accepted, but as who I am now, I am doubtful that I can win out against all this.

Eire, you rock. That rant was excellent.

Augh, it really sucks that people won't give you a chance. I'm sorry. This may sound overly simplistic, but have you tried talking to these people about their treatment of you? Emma

• I've tried a bit, but probably not enough. It just seems really petty to me, to make a big deal out of these things, but it adds up. I'll, uh, figure out something....

 *Yeah..I hate any sort of confrontation.  I don't think this is petty,
though.  I really don't. --Emma