Different

Heard this on Gossip Girl (Season 5, Ep 4) and immediately tracked it down.  Perfect down to the slight laugh in her gravelly, wistful voice.  

As I've grown up, I've noticed that certain people use the word 'different' to mean 'someone who is unlike us', 'someone I don't really understand, and most probably cannot get along with'. It's code for 'let's keep a polite distance from this one'.

A: How do you find person X?
B: Hmm, she's had a lot of life experiences. [pauses significantly] She's different.

A friend once shared a favourite book entitled Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. It was about a girl who was different. It wasn't about daring to be different. It wasn't about trying to fit in. And it wasn't about trying to be someone. She just was herself.

“In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.” ...“We had no one to compare her to, no one to measure her against. She was unknown territory. Unsafe. We were afraid to get too close.”

---

“She's in tenth grade,' he said. 'I hear she's been homeschooled till now.' 

Maybe that explains it,' I said.” 

And the people who chose to set her apart.

Love like a double-edged sword.

'There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It's easier to be alone. Because what if you learn that you need love and then you don't have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever.' 

- Meredith, Grey's Anatomy Season 7 Ep 22

Constantly torn between the romanticism of love and the reality of it.  One minute, one day, one moment in time, you're filled with the possibility of love.  The next, reality hits you in the face and you realise its impossibility.

So I face reality, and I realise that as much as I make out of my friendships, there is a gap between my ideal of friendship, and the reality of what kind of friend I can be.  We're supposed to feel, then think, then act accordingly.  But there's a gap.  A gap I wish I could fold like a piece of paper to make two ends meet, but I can't.  

Then, there's the gap between what I make out of the friendship, and what my friend makes out of the friendship.  We all have different ideas of intimacy.  There's always an imbalance somehow.  And as much as I'd like to bridge the distance that exists between one person and another, there's a gap.  A gap I wish I could fold like a piece of paper to make two friends meet, but I can't.  I'd rather not break the ice if we both get caught on the shards.

Meredith: We are not better! [pause] Cristina, a psychiatrist given several opportunities has deemed me unfit to do my job.

Cristina: Well he'll get over it, just go back in a couple of days.

Meredith: You are not better!

Cristina: Well, in a couple of days I'll be better too.

Meredith: In a couple of days you'll be married.

Cristina: Are you trying to talk me out of this?

Meredith: Look at me and tell me you're sure.

Cristina: Okay, you know what? You don't get to do this. All you get to do, is help me break the tie between the lilies of the valley and the peonies. That's it.

Meredith: No, I do get to do this. Derek is the love of my life, but you're my soulmate. I do get to do this. I mean, why can't it wait six months? Your flowers aren't going anywhere! You broke up with him because he couldn't choose you. Just why does it have to be right now?

Cristina: I think, I think you should tell Derek about the miscarriage.

Meredith: We are talking about you.

Cristina: We are talking about us not being better? Then you need to tell him.

Meredith: He's not ready. He's not okay.

Cristina: You're not okay! You should tell him!

---

Cristina: I never gave you any crap about your post-it.

Meredith: You look beautiful.

Cristina: I know. How's Owen? Is he good?

Meredith: Owen's perfect. He's perfect.

Cristina: Thank you.

- Grey's Anatomy Season 7, Ep 1

If only life was the way they portray it on television.  To have the soulmate, the friend who sticks closer than a brother (Pv 18:24).  To have the kind of friend you can crawl into bed with at the end of the day, and be welcome, even when they're married.  To have sentiments toward each other that are equally reciprocated.  But reality is that such friendships don't exist beyond the silver screen.

And if I already feel that way about my friendships, what of love? What is love?

They say it is better to have loved and lost, than never have loved at all.  But if all I feel is an emptiness that belies my sense of loss, maybe I've never really loved at all.  Maybe, I never will.

There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone.

I think the one thing I have retained from this semester is that Bob Marley died of acral melanoma. A useful fact for any medical exam - it's why I always ace them. (For the Sheldons (Big Bang Theory) who read this blog, I am now holding a 'This is sarcasm' sign)

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”

- allegedly by Bob Marley

Night-time conversational musings, Part I

I was talking to a friend the other day about what it means to be introverted/extroverted. We were speculating the nature of this strange trait. Is it an attitude, a characteristic, a preference?

Today, I realised that one way to look at introversion/extroversion is as a mode of fulfillment.

There are two ways in which a human can be fulfilled. One is through relationships with others, the other is through self-fulfillment. In a venn diagram, the overlapping intersection would be, I suppose, odd things like relations to entities like God, music and other abstractions.

Being fulfilled through relationships with others involves surrendering to the feelings you get when you are in the company of others. When you're devoted to loving someone else, whether it's in the form of friendship, filial duty or the (urgh, dreaded) romance, the pleasure of their company, and the atmosphere that surrounds you frees you from a sense of emptiness. To a certain extent, when you're caught up in relating to other people, you don't really have time to be caught up in your own problems, or feel dissatisfied with yourself. Even when employed in a negative way, hatred of someone can be so all-consuming that you can lose sight of your own problems. I speculate that extroverts would tend to find this way of finding fulfillment more natural and possibly more satisfying.

On the other hand, being fulfilled through setting your own goals involves being single-minded and focused. Although you may not be able to spend as much time enjoying the company of others, you certainly don't waste as much time (ever notice how spending time with others tends to make you waste so much time, pretty often doing nothing much other than waiting around?). For me, one of the consolations of a more self-directed lifestyle is that it is, to a certain extent, less of a risky venture in terms of end pay-off. I can always say to myself, 'Well, even if I haven't had much time with friends this time round, at least I've accomplished such and such.'

What a woman

I was mooching around today, and found out about Aimee Mullins. Wow.

A large nose isn't a godsend, it's a...

Ladies and gentlemen of the mockery, I give you the original nose on a stick. Paul Townshend is a guitarist whose large nose drove him to an incredible career in guitar.

[Historic relevance: Just in case you happen to be blind or short-sighted or dyslexic (or a stranger who doesn't know me), I have a rather prominent nose that used to be the subject of ridicule in my early adolescence, when it used to rather overpower my face.]

Dance therapy

I was doing some research for my latest assignment, and I found out about Trudi Schoop, this really interesting dance therapist. :)