Hopelessly Sanguine, Winter, The Swine, The Lost Horse Mistress and Jessie
- I tell no one until the test is done.
- I can break character only in my writings.
- I can be each character as long as I feel is necessary.
- I must write daily of my experience.
October the 24th
Early this morning, around 4 a.m., I started as Hopelessly Sanguine. It was a rather unexpected beginning, truth be told. As a happy optimistic, part of my character is rather bold in a shy way. She does things that I consider carefully because I am afraid to do them and she executes these things with ease and without thought. So when I found that I had been deliberating for at least an hour as to whether I should make contact with [5] (I was actually less afraid in this situation and more anxious that said contact and I would meet during my experimental week) Hopelessly Sanguine took over and told me that I wanted to do it and I shouldn't spend so much time worrying.
Besides that, nothing else worth noting. I find, except for the above incident, I am fairly similar to her. She is a bigger part of me than I want to admit. I've always assumed my optimism, but it is unsettling how comfortable I am in the skin of the annoyingly happy girl who smiles all the time because she is excited about life and is so happy to see you again! and when she says it, you feel like she means it...
I'm fairly certain that tomorrow I'll be changing.
October the 25th
Today today today. Today I am Winter. I really like this character so far. I feel important. She is cold and lovely, icily (ah that word looks so beautiful in writing) regarding her peers and knowing she is better. No body likes her very much.
Today in church Winter only went to sacrament meeting, saying, of course, that that is all she needs. She didn't speak to anyone, only curtly nodded her head to the poor chap who opened the door for her. Normally when I skip meetings I go upstairs with the excuse of using the bathroom on the tip of my tongue if by chance someone asks where I am going, and I go down another set of stairs and sneak out the side door. But not today! Winter haughtily walked straight out the front door, in plain view of anyone who cared to look.
I daresay I am quite capable of marvelous works when I put my mind to it.
Today I wore my white silk dress with a light blue cardigan. No makeup except for a pale pink stain on my lips. I must say that the winter look suits me marvelously well.
October the 26th
I decided that I was to change today. I was going to be Winter again but I think I only want to have an excuse to act as though I am better than everyone. It was deliciously evil but would have profited me nothing. So, today I am The Swine. I was very nervous to awaken this character... She is so many things that I don't want to be. All the other characters are part of my nature but I picked The Swine because I wanted to be someone that I absolutely am not. The Swine is loud, bossy though sometimes she is funny but only in fairly stupid ways.
Today I found The Swine laughing loudly at everything. I could barely stand it. In class today she talked to a girl I hadn't ever spoken to and was making up anecdotes and working hard to keep conversation in her power and on her terms. It was exhausting.
Maybe I am more quiet and more reserved than I like to think... I think this is a character I have to play again.
October the 27th
Last night I resolved to be The Swine again. That was before [5] decided it was time. In real life. Today.
Later
The first encounter wasn't terrible. The Swine laughed too often, too loud but otherwise she didn't act as bad as I feared. Round two wasn't I wasn't nearly as lucky. As was the case yesterday, The Swine did her best to completely take over conversation. And finally, The Swine brought all together and, as though knowing her time was almost over, everything culminated in a hideous show of exaggerated gestures, flapping jaw and half closed eyes in a cacophony of hyena laughter and snorts.
If I stay any longer with this character, I'm fairly certain I will, single-handedly, turn my life from a poorly written paperback to a hundred thousand shredded pieces of paper floating on the wind over the great abyss of lost loves.
October the 28th
Still recovering from the embarrassments of The Swine, I limped into my character of today: The Lost Horse Mistress. She is the epitome of my romanticism: beautiful, sad, highly intelligent and lonely. She lived in the 1890's in the English countryside, taking tea with her best friend Charles every Thursday. She loved horses almost as much as she loved literature and Chopin. As her love for Charles grew, his infatuation with another blossomed and The Horse Mistress found that the only time she could find peace was when she rode, when she rode wildly, passionately, blindly. She and the horse became a continuous fluid movement, the wind in her ears silencing thoughts of her only love, the continuity of motion dulling her tumultuous emotions.
But she could not ignore her passions forever. They started to eat at her, their fire consuming her from the inside out. She became sickly and feverish and her good-natured temperament soured. Last to deteriorate was her mind. At her death she did not remember where she was or who she was but she remembered that she had loved and she remembered that she had been happy and that she might be so again.
October the 29th
Persuaded by The Lost Horse Mistress, we went to Nosferatu, somewhat satiating our mutual desire for, well, desire. There is something beautifully sad about watching alone others lust for each other.
And to be beautifully sad is entirely what we wanted tonight.
October the 30th
I am sad to see The Lost Horse Mistress go, but I think that being her much longer would have taxed my emotions heavily. Though I would like to say a word on her style, which was impeccable, to say the least. Victorian shoes in leather and suede with gray trouser socks underneath cuffed trousers in a course greyish brown cotton with a vintage cream and ruffled shirt and a maroon sweater jacket. With her hair pulled in the late 19th century fashion and a feather decal for effect. Her makeup was a soft brown on the eyes with a deep blood red on the lips with a smudge of brown in the hollows of the cheeks.
Anyway...
Today I am going to be Jessie. She was my best friend and I look up to her even now. She was many things I was too afraid to be. Jessie is very witty, logical, sarcastic, and is different because she is not because she wants to be. She isn't exactly shy, but she doesn't like talking to people. She is somewhere between Margot Tennebaum and Daria. It is quite stunning how different I feel while being Jessie, who hasn't an ounce of romantics as compared to the whirlwind of passion with The Horse Mistress. I feel quietly confident today as I walked with my eyes on the pavement. Today was the only day I did any homework all week.
I wore jeans with a brown trenchcoat, white sneaker boots and black eyeliner reminiscent of junior high.
October the 31st
It has been an exhausting week. Today I am myself to be the antithesis of being someone else on this lovely holiday. I feel incredibly boring.
I should write something epic, something telling of everything I've learned, something clever about how I may be changed, something poignant of how I may have ruined a would-be good relation because of my experiments.
But I'm not going to.
Having one more day to sit in my own skin again, I will say that I have learned much about myself, much of which I didn't want to know. I have been other people and tried to come up with something meaningful because of it. I suppose I could end by saying something like, "Being me is the best." or "Nothing is as good as being yourself." or "I'm not afraid to be me!" or something similar that we have all heard from disillusioned adults and children's TV programs.
But it would be flagrantly untrue.
Because being satisfied completely with who I am means that I have given up.
i once pretended i was shy.
ReplyDeleteit nearly killed me.
i may be reserved.
quiet even.
but shy?
n.o.t. M.E.