Rhysography

I have a couple of things on my mind tonight.

Tomorrow, my little cousin is graduating from high school. On any other night, I’d talk about how her brightness and potential pull me into a deep hole of self-deprecation and perpetual darkness. But tonight, I’m not letting it consume me. Tonight, something else is swimming around in the depths of my mind.

Tomorrow night, her grandparents are picking me up to give me a ride to her graduation. This sounds irrelevant, but let me explain: 

Her grandparents—my aunt and uncle— are the most difficult people I’ve ever met. 

They are ignorant, inconsiderate, and horrible, disgusting people. I have never felt such contempt for anybody my entire life, let alone two. They have no respect for anybody but themselves, and they stick their noses in any business where they clearly have no god given means.

And tomorrow I have to spend what will feel like the longest car ride of my life. I don’t want to think about what they might say to me. But I know what they say will cause something fierce to grow inside me to the point where I might bash my own head against the window of the van for a way out. 

It is so late… I can barely make sense of what I’m typing. But this needs to get out before it consumes me by morning. 

The other thing that is bothering me to wit’s end right now is my friend Sami. 

I love her to death, but she really drives me up the wall sometimes. 

She always has something to say.

I am [so] apprehensive about telling her what I want to do with my Film and Video degree because she so clearly does not believe that I can make it in what I want to do.

Every goddamn chance she gets, she will ask me: “What are you going to do with your degree?”

As if it’s the oddest thing she’s ever heard of. 

What really gets under my skin… is the fact that she always brings up Wong Fu Productions when she thinks of what I might be able to do. 

I loved Wong Fu Productions. I’m the one who introduced her to them. But every time she tells me about how they’re expanding and how I could intern with Wong Fu or even when she brings them up when relating their activities to mine, it beats my heart to a pulp.

She doesn’t believe I can do any better. 

Did it never occur to her… that maybe I want to make a name for myself? Why would I want to associate myself with something that has already been established?

No. I don’t want to work with Wong Fu Productions. I never did. I looked up to them as role models, but I never saw myself being a part of them. 

The truth is, I’m apprehensive about telling anybody what I want to do with my degree because I know they’ll all look at me like I’m crazy. 

I want to win an Academy Award.

That’s what I’m going to do with it. I know it’s going to be really hard. I know that my chances are slim to none. But I don’t care if it takes me my entire life— I will work toward it until I die. 

I will not stop until I’m good at what I do. 

I think that’s my new mantra. I really like it. 

A different kind of passion. Very nice.