[stylist] my memoir piece, "Faye"
Vejas Vasiliauskas
alpineimagination at gmail.com
Mon Aug 3 19:34:25 UTC 2015
It's a really hard call. But I think I agree with you, Bridgit.
I don't think it has as much to do with blindness as it does with
me as a person, because I have many different interests compared
to others (Barbara on this list probably one of the few other
multiples fanatics) and I like to keep to myself a lot. I do
what I want to do because I want to do it, not because the rest
of the school is doing it.
I googled Faye after I wrote this (well, her real name-it's one
of these names which nobody else has). And she's actually making
a great start for herself. She and her friend, who happens to be
a boy, are creating songs and hope to get them on Itunes. But I
don't think that this has anything to do with blindness. If I
enjoyed the kind of music that she and her friend liked, and I
was serious about being in a band as well, then I would probably
be in the band, but that's just not me.
And Chris, in answer to your question, maybe I did have a little
crush, but the fact that she eventually came out as gay made her
strictly off-limits.
Vejas
----- Original Message -----
From: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
To: "'Writers' Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 13:34:59 -0500
Subject: Re: [stylist] my memoir piece, "Faye"
Donna,
I think a lot of it is a teen thing and not so much a blind
thing. Though I
will say that I find as a blind adult, sighted people shy away
from
friendships with me because they think we will have little in
common. But I
was a sighted teen, and at the time, I delt with things Vejas
mentions in
his piece.
Bridgit
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Applebutter
Hill via stylist
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2015 1:17 PM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List' <stylist at nfbnet.org
Cc: Applebutter Hill <applebutterhill at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [stylist] my memoir piece, "Faye"
Vejas,
Thanks for sharing this with us. I was immediately transported
back to high
school, when (as a visually impaired teen) I found friendships
difficult.
Your comments about your other friendships not being satisfying
and about
how you put so much more into cultivating the relationship than
she did
really hit home with me. I guess everyone has these experiences
sometimes,
but I find myself wondering if blind people have these
experiences a greater
percentage of the time than sighted people do. I always felt
like my friends
were with me as a second choice. Many times, when others were
available,
they wouldn't have anything to do with me. I started liking and
making
judgments about people more for how they interacted with each
other than how
they treated me. I felt invisible in that world.
Donna
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Vejas
Vasiliauskas via stylist
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2015 2:43 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Cc: Vejas Vasiliauskas
Subject: [stylist] my memoir piece, "Faye"
Hi All,
I have decided to take Brigit's challenge with my own memoir.
This is an account of a friendship I had (however I changed the
name because
I owe her that much). I have never written this format before,
so would
really appreciate feedback on structure.
I feel like I could really improve on this, although I don't know
how, but
at least I have something to start with. I have attached it and
will paste
it below.
Happy reading.
Vejas
Faye
by Vejas Vasiliauskas
If you were to ask me whether Faye Hyde and I were friends, my
immediate
answer would be "yes." If you were to ask Faye whether she and I
were
friends, her answer would also be "yes".
But the truth is, our relationship was much more complicated than
that.
I first met Faye as an eleventh-grader. It was on a Friday early
September
in creative writing club. I had come to my usual seat, and asked
the girl
next to me if she was saving it for anyone, to which she replied
no. She
told me eer name, Faye, and that she and her mother had more
unique names,
while their father and brother did not. She seemed like a great
person.
She went to Gay Straight Alliance even when she was straight,
which to me
said a lot about her respect for them.
I probably saw her only once or twice more that year.
My story about Faye really begins in twelth grade. Not many
girls have this
name, so when I found that she was sitting next to me in
chemistry, I asked
her if she was the person I had met last year. She told me she
was. I
hated my chemistry teacher as much as I hated chemistry (or maybe
more so?)
and the only way that I was able to get through the class
emotionally was to
talk to her.
There were a few issues surrounding our friendship that made it
difficult.
First, and most obviously, I am a boy and she is a girl, but this
was not a
dating relationship by any means.
Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, there are
still going
to be aig differences. The second was that I was a senior and
she was a
sophomore. This again does not really matter, but it will make
any furingr
communication we have with each other difficult because we will
not really
have much in common to talk about.
Faye was similar to me in many ways, and different in many
others. Both she
and I liked writing stories, although hers were more fantasy
while mine were
mostly fiction. She also helped me a little bit with my music
style.
Although I enjoy music, I also love birds and have accumulated
many bird cds
over the past couple of years, so when someone tells me about
someone new I
go for it. Because of her, I now like Charli XCX, Tegan and
Sara, and
Marina and the Diamonds. Our musical interests differ in that I
love to
sing just for fun and she aspires to be a musician. I remember
thinking
that she was crazy for wanting to take music theory, because I
find it
extremely boring, but I understand that as a musician, a course
in this is
critical.
Our attitudes about certain aspects of life were a bit different.
She really liked to argue with my chemistry teacher and get him
all mad. I
was always taught to be obedient and never to argue (within
reason, of
course; if my teacher started calling me names that would be a
completely
different story). Therefore, I found her attitude a little
admirable,
although I would never do this myself. Another difference was in
her style
of music. I don't like music with swear lyrics, because I want
to have the
freedom of listening to any of my songs with anyone around,
whereas she
enjoyed them.
Reading this, you might think that things were wonderful. But
something in
the friendship just didn't seem right. Sometimes, I would tell
her about
something I was writing and explain a scene, and she didn't ask
any
questions or show a whole lot of interest.
But then again, I don't know if maybe she was just having bad
days and
wouldn't talk about them. I would tell her probably more than
you should a
friend, because my relationship with my two other friends was
distant to
nonexistent, so I think that the friendship meant much more to me
than it
did her, who had lots of friends already. One day I asked her if
she could
sit with me at lunch, to which she asked me why. I had to admit
that I was
lonely because the relationship between my other friends just
wasn't the
same. I had hoped her to be extremely enthusiastic about sitting
with me,
but this didn't happen. Another time, I asked her if we could
sing a song
together for an open mic casual night. At first, we decided that
I would
sing and she would play the guitar. However, twice later she
asked me that
if I could play piano, why could I not just do it myself? I had
to explain
that although I play, I do not have the passion for it that I do
singing,
and I hate practicing. Had she wanted to play guitar, she would
have been
doing something that she enjoyed.
I feel lucky as a teenager to have a close relationship with my
parents, so
they knew about our friendship and the ups and downs.
Their attitude about her was a little bit different than mine.
What I saw as an admirable trait, arguing with a teacher I didn't
like, they
saw as an I-don't-care attitude. Yet, they recognized we were
friends, and
my mom asked me to tell her that she could always give her a ride
home if
she needed one. I can only imagine how hard it is to be a
parent, when you
have to be happy for the child when they are, be supportive when
they are
down, and not mess up the relationship too much when you do not
like their
friend. One day when I was feeling down about it, my mom said
that I just
had to accept that she was my "chemistry friend." And so we ended
the year
as just that: chemistry friends.
Part of the reason I cared so much about her is probably because
I have
always wanted a sibling close in age with me, as well as a
sister. So I
thought that she could be my "pretend" sister, and that we could
be
inseparable. Although I later realized that our differences in
attitudes
meant that we could not be as close as I imagined, I continued to
have a
fondness for her even on to the end of the year, not in a
boyfriend way but
in a brotherly type way. This meant that no matter what happened
between
us, I still had this desire to make life easier for her if
possible. The
last month of school, the choirs had to collect shoes because the
choir
program was in debt. We had to collect at least 50 pairs of
shoes each. I
had over 150 pairs and she only had 10, so I asked my parents if
I could
bring in some pairs for her. They were against the idea, because
they said
that she would never take responsibility. Although I was upset
with them
about that at the time, I ultimately understood that they were
right. If I
was going to help her, then she could just expect others to help
her in the
futuoe. The fact that she probably would not have saved me from
this jam
most likely occurred to them, but did not really cross my mind.
I find it a
little odd that even when I wasn't taking what I wanted out of
our
friendship, I still wanted to give, give, give, but then I was
desperate for
friends my age and she was an easy one to talk to. Even now, if
someone
were to tell me that they didn't like something about her, I
would know they
were right but still be upset with them for saying something. I
have her
e-mail and could contact her if I wanted, but at the same time I
don't know
if I want to. I invested so much more time in our friendship
than she ever
did.
Well, anyway, that's high-school friendships for you. I still
have a lot to
learn, and will have lots of other opportunities to make friends.
I just
hope that it all goes well.
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