Sara Angela Rodriguez
A415-002/Chambers
Fiction Piece #2
1/31/2013
I wrote
this in order to experiment with the epistolary style of writing. This was
originally going to be a large set of blog entries that chronicles a person
throughout the years. They were going to be the type; well they are the type
that uses the blog only when they remember that it exists. So, all the entries would
be random and the only thing that would be constant is this collection of unfulfilled
promises. I’m still playing around with this and I hope that it gets finished the
way I want it to because right now I only have the basic outline done.The title is also a work in progress.
Word Count 1,220
Blogs
2005
Five years ago I made a promise to
myself. Today, I found that promise. I have yet to read it but I hope that I
didn’t promise anything impossible. You see, five years ago I didn’t smoke or
drink. Five years ago I didn’t have sex with random strangers the street. Five
years ago my parents were still alive. Five years ago I could still look at
myself in the mirror. Five years ago, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I
could look myself in the eyes and I was proud of whom I was. I was proud of
whom I was and I knew who I wanted to become—a successful lawyer with a big
family, a dog, a nice big house, and a perfect life. Today I know that’s not a
possibility. I know that I can’t be a lawyer because for that I would have had
to have gone to school. I dropped out my first semester of college and started
busking on the streets. After that I found a job at a local café and I’ve been
here ever since, barista by day, bartender by night. I know I can’t have a big
family. My real family is either dead or gone and no one wants to have a
relationship with a druggy drop out. Even if they did want a relationship I’m
too unstable and I’ll probably end up walking out on them. The dog I have.
That’s the one thing that I know I can have. And actually, he found me. The
house I don’t need. I don’t want a big empty house. My one bedroom apartment is
plenty good. The perfect life….that’s a joke. No one is perfect. Nothing is
perfect. Well, I guess I should read the promise. Nothing ventured, nothing
gained. Ya’ know?
͏
1999
A Promise to Myself:
So, I've realized that I am able to
do anything I put my mind to. I know I've probably said this many a times
before but now I truly believe it. For the past 4 days I've been in the middle
of nowhere, aka Lorganger, Louisiana, with no cell phone service, no internet
access, and 60 complete strangers. I thought that I was going to die and that I
would have a horrible time, but by the first night I couldn't imagine leaving.
I became closer to those people than I have to most people that I've known for
years. I can truly say that I will never forget them and that if we would have
stayed at that camp for more than just those four days we would have discovered
a way to put our brain power together and take over the world. I learned to be
a leader and to be a follower, which is harder than it sounds. I had to
overcome the fact that no one will do a perfect job on everything and no one is
as OCD as I am and that I need to get over that and just go with the flow.
Truth be told I've never done that and I believe that is why so many of my
friends always turned away from me. I'm an extremist and I should and will
stop. I need to come down from my cloud and admit that I was wrong. Another
thing I learned, in the most odd of manners, is that I should stop saying yes
to everything. No matter how bad I'll feel about helping out later, I need to
have time for myself. You see every time Lacey wants to go to a concert or
Amber wants to go to a movie or Kim want to just hang out because we haven't
seen each other in years, I should go. I haven't done something for me in what
seems like years. So starting tomorrow I will make a change in the way I deal
with all my dealings. Also, the parentals have brought to my attention that the
last time I slept for at least 8 hours during the school year was sometime in
elementary school. I need more sleep. So that is what I'm going to do. Now I
know you are wondering why I am writing all this gibberish down, but I want
something solid to know that I promised myself that I would change and what is
better than making a public promise to myself? If I break my promise everyone
will know and that plus my new found free spirit will keep me from breaking
this promise. I have decided that I will pray more, meditate more, and do my
best to run my heart out every morning and dance it out every night! I will
give up drinking coffee from Starbucks every day because I was told that if I
save all the money I spend at Starbucks then by the time I retire I will have a
million dollars saved up. I will read every day, because I have sort of been
slack on that, I will enjoy life to the fullest, and I will read this every day
to remind myself of the promise I have made to myself. I know I will be able to
keep all these promises to myself and go above and beyond the call of duty to
do so. *Sigh* I think that may be all that I have to say. I am completely
relived that I've written this down because I know that if I just said it in my
head that I would forget what I wanted to do and why. So, I guess that's it.
͏
2005
That’s it? That was my promise? Well, it seems very shallow
and superficial. But, I guess that in a way I did keep my promise. I sleep more
than 8 hours on school days, though not going to school and not having to do
homework makes that possible. I don’t drink coffee anymore. Sky has replaced
Starbucks as my preferred poison. I go out more now. I’ve been out this entire
week and I hope to be out next week too. Though, thinking back on it now I do
remember what prompted me to write this ‘promise’ to myself. You see back in
middle school and high school I was a straight ‘A’ student—no smoking, no
drinking, no partying, nada. Because of my great behavior and great leadership
skills I was sent to this camp for ‘inspiring leaders’ and I had to work
together with ‘other leaders’ in order to raise money for some organization. At
the end of the weekend we were all told to write a public promise to ourselves
based on what we learned at camp. I wrote this in order to satisfy then. In
reality I had a horrible time. I hated those strangers and I hated that camp. I
guess it’s time to make a new promise to myself. Maybe I’ll keep it. Maybe I
won’t. I guess I’ll have to find it in five years to see how I did.
͏
2005
A Promise to Myself:
Drink less
Stop smoking
Don’t have sex with strangers/use condoms
Go back to school
Find someone to love that loves me back
Reconnect with family
Remember tonight
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