“She said, that she would give me greatness, status, placement
Above the others, my face would grace covers of the magazines
Of the hustlers, paper, the likes of which
That I had never seen, her eyes glow green
With the logo of our dreams, the purpose of our scene
A obscene obsession for the bling
She would be my queen, I could be her king, together
She would make me cool, and we would both rule, forever
And I would never feel pain
And never be without pleasure, ever, again..“
Lately I’ve felt myself become self-reliant. And not because I wanted to be, but because the people around me, who are my closest friends, don’t seem to have my best interests at heart anymore. I wonder, did they ever? Or did I just trick myself into believing that loyalty is natural amongst friends? So, instead of thinking that they knew what was right for me, I had to start deciding for myself. I had to take what they said on board, but do my own thing. The more I do this, the more I realise their actions are more selfish than I initially thought.
Sometimes I think that they’re so hyper critical of me because I refused to follow their way of doing things. I’ve never been the type of girl who follows the golden path, because in all honesty, I couldn’t be. I deviated from that road long ago, because it has different values to my own. My goal in life was never to have the job, money, popularity, ‘be the ultimate.’ I’ve never bought into that materialistic shit. I want something more.
The thing with the golden path is, you have to be golden to follow it. I’m not perfect, as much as I want to be, I have to realise that’s not for me. My hair alone prevents me. The perfect girl does not have an unruly mass of dark curls. She has straight hair, sleek and polished, possibly blonde. My goddamn hair will never ever look perfect, no matter what I do to it. It can look hot, it usually looks good, but it’s not perfect girl hair. It’s freakin gypsy hair. That’s okay though, I don’t mind.
See what I do is, I go my own way. And in this way, I fuck around, I make mistakes, I break all the precious rules about what we must do in life, I have fun, I write about it later. And somehow, I make it all work for me. That’s what pisses people off so much. I’m not serious, I never spent my high school education studying, I’ve waitressed longer than I’ve had a ‘proper’ job, I have the best luck (or I’m just awesomely opportunistic) and things seem to fall in my lap. I take my smarts for granted and when I can, I coast.
“He is the cleanest amongst the younger
Outstanding achieving up-and-comers
The ones that had dead-beat daddies, and well-to-do mamas
But not well enough to keep ’em from us
The ones that were, fighting in class, who might not pass
Rap record pressured to laugh, at a life not fast
Can you feel it? That’s what I got asked
Do I love her? Said I don’t know
Streets got my heart, game got my soul
One time missing sunshine will never hurt your soul..”
So I have a lot of my close buddies hating on me. Because they already have their fulltime jobs, and they have their careers, they want to build houses for their families and have all the responsibility of the world on their shoulders. But I’ll be damned if I’m living that life with them. What I don’t understand is, if they see me happy, why can’t they be happy for me, like I am for them? Why do they try to keep a tighter reign on me, to control me? Why do they want to tell me who I can date and when I can go out and how drunk I can get?
I just feel like saying, fuck you, stop hating. I don’t ask for a thing from you, except for honesty and loyalty. But I can take or leave honesty. Why can’t you have my back? I’m not going to do things your way, I’m not going to live that life where you get to judge me by what I do for a living. I don’t want to be a fucking office girl with a 56k salary. I want to be a writer, I want to be a great thinker, I want to somehow help humanity and possibly save Palestine. And fuck you if you don’t believe in me.
See what pisses me off so much is that they want me to think I’m wrong. They want to beat it into me, that I can’t just live my own way, that I’m a fuck up. They want to take my confidence away and make me apologetic for being different, for not climbing their little ladder to “the top”. They want to take me down a notch or two because I think I’m going to make it, and that threatens everything they’ve ever thought about life. That if they work hard like little ants for their masters that they will be rewarded with a mortgage, a few more mouths to feed and a minivan with aircon.
But I have to believe in myself, because if I don’t I’ll surely fade away to nothing. If I can’t do this, then everything I once thought was true would have lost all meaning. If I can’t find a way to believe that there’s more to all of this than the spray tans, the blow dries and the Louis Vuitton then I may as well just die.
Because I’ll be damned if I’m straightening my hair.
“Come, these are the tales of The Cool
Guaranteed to go and make you fail from your school
And seek unholy grails like a fool
And hang with the players of the pool, fast talking on the hustle
No Heaven up above you, no Hell underneath you
And nowhere will receive thee, so
Shed no tear, when we’re not here
And keep your faith, as we chase
…The Cool”
Tags: ambition, career, friends, haters, having it all, independence, jealousy, job, life, loyalty, lupe fiasco, path, the cool
Streets On Fire 
September 27, 2008 at 12:03 am |
OK. That was good. Really good.
Maybe think of it this way… the fact that they don’t get it probably means you’re doing it right. Don’t let any of that nonsense they tell you get into your head, which I know, is a lot easier said than done. The truly brilliant have to be different to make a difference, and if you’re doing that then you’re already winning.
I wish I could say something more amazing but I’m struggling here, lol.
September 27, 2008 at 12:44 am |
Yep. As someone else who never really felt right travelling down the “golden path”, to steal your phrase, I completely get what you’re saying. Hell, I’m a good few years older MORE SEASONED than your good self, and I’m still only just figuring out where my ambition lies. The fact that you have a good bead on your path, whatever that path may be, is a blessing.
Far be it for me to give you useless, condescending advice, but allow me to offer some useless, condescending advice: Go around and ask every forty-something you know if they are still close with the group of friends they had when they were twenty. I’m pretty sure that, relatives aside, only a fraction would answer in the affirmative.
There’s a good reason for this, too. People grow apart, and nothing speeds up this process like divergent ambitions.
I’m not saying that you should abandon your friends or anything. The point I’m clumsily trying to make is that it’s entirely normal to find yourself with less in common with your friends, and that the price of forging your own path may end up being the closeness of those friendships.
September 27, 2008 at 11:19 am |
TDW – Thanks 🙂 Its true, sometimes its hard not to let people get down on you, especially when its your mates but thankfully instead of just taking it I’m feeling a bit more defiant. I like the feeling of being able to take what they say and discard it as I want to now, it feels liberating to think they hold no sway over me and what I do.
Andy – Its pretty rough on the other side isn’t it? Because you’ve got the whole world telling you that you’re doing it wrong. I’ve struggled with it, but fuck it, I can’t compare myself to them because we’re playing two different games, so no wonder we’re not at the same places.
You know I welcome any advice, be it useless, condescending or otherwise. And you’re probably right, I may not even have the same mates in the future. But I do hope we can go our separate ways and still somehow be connected, I kinda like em.
September 27, 2008 at 1:24 pm |
They don’t really sound like “friends” if they think like that of you. I’m just sayin’.
Aside from that, I know how you feel. I feel pretty different from them. All my friends have gone to uni and they seem like they’re the kind of people who want to do that “reach the top” stuff that personally isn’t my kind of thing.
Similar to what TDW said, you don’t have to make a million bucks a year to be considered successful; you could be a hobo on the street and do a lot of things that have contributed to society.
September 27, 2008 at 1:32 pm |
The perfect girl does not have an unruly mass of dark curls. She has straight hair, sleek and polished, possibly blonde. My goddamn hair will never ever look perfect, no matter what I do to it. It can look hot, it usually looks good, but it’s not perfect girl hair. It’s freakin gypsy hair.
Yours sounds “perfect” to me.
See what I do is, I go my own way. And in this way, I fuck around
That sounds even better!
Seriously LuLi, just follow your dream mate.
September 27, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
Oh, nearly forgot. Good luck in the AFL Grand Final, which is just about to start. I hope Geelong smashes the hell out of those over-hyped and full-of-themselves pretenders.
September 27, 2008 at 10:54 pm |
Definitely *don’t* straighten your hair.
I’ve never known a girl with curly hair who was better off for having straightened it. And i know a lot of curlygirls who’ve experimented with straightening, i can tell you!
“Perfect girl hair” only has to be clean and healthy. Anything other than that (curly, straight, blonde, brunette) is in the eye of the beerholder.
September 28, 2008 at 9:11 am |
Wendy – I’m hoping thats the score, because I can tell you I’m never going to be a millionaire, unless I win the money. They’re not really feeling like friends at the moment, but they are, we’re just clashing with our world views.
Ray – Cheers, you have to work with what you have true? Ohh the cats. We choked, old school Geelong style. Why, life, why? I just don’t even know any more. I’m so sad.
Gully – It takes forever and I can’t get over how flat it is. I feel weird when my hair doesn’t have body, and it makes me feel boring. My curls make me feel special, unless I just lost the GF, and then nothing makes me feel anything.
September 28, 2008 at 11:44 am |
No, you didn’t “choke”, LuLi. Hawthorn choked Geelong by playing ‘out of their skins’ … and out of their trees. Drugs?
September 28, 2008 at 3:20 pm |
Well, whatever it was, they definitely did better on the day.
September 29, 2008 at 2:24 pm |
Your friends are probably a little envious, you’re going to be out there making a difference and they’ll just be watching you make a difference. See the difference?
…….difference
lol
September 29, 2008 at 2:33 pm |
Oh Domino, I have this thing about repeated words. I ALWAYS notice whenever someone uses the same word or phrase more than once in a post or comment, and I’m always making sure if I use a word twice its far away in the post from the other one. I can’t help it, and you’d be amazed at how often people repeat the same phrases, its like they have a vocab loop.