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You Will Feel the Feelings
Category:
Biography
Publisher: Meghan McDonnell
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 178
Copyright: Dec 18, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781311305435
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Further reports from the trenches of daily life.
Novice is the second installment of the personal journals in which, for over 20 years, writer Meghan McDonnell has chronicled her life beginning at age eight through present day. With searing candor and tenderness, her musings on daily life and observations of family, social and romantic relationships coalesce in a commentary on challenges, facing down passion and fear, and American life in the 21st century. Wide in scope and vivid in detail, her journals are her confessional love letter to the world. Join her on a fearless, vulnerable, sometimes painful and quixotic, but always honest journey, also known as the human experience. Readers who love Cheryl Strayed or Karl Ove Knausgaard will enjoy this author.
Volume two of this addictive and vicarious series spans her freshman year of college, first love, a trip to Australia, and navigating young adulthood, living on her own among peers.
Excerpt
Monday, February 15, 1999
Dear Diary,
We made it to Melbourne and are sitting at Traveler’s Café where we ate and got vanilla-flavored coffee. Yesterday, Cassidy and I took a boat ride to Wyanga Park Winery. We drank wine on the boat and a bus picked us up on the other side and drove us up a dirt road to the winery itself. We tasted wines recklessly and had lunch. We bought bottles and took the boat back. The day before that we did laundry and wrote home. We went out to dinner that night and had cocktails. We made dinner, drank wine, and played cards last night until the bus came to take us to Melbourne at midnight. We had a five hour ride and at first we were wide awake, stoked and silly, but a few hours later I was worn out.
We got in at 5:30 this morning and walked around town with our packs until we found a hostel. Check-in wasn’t until noon so we slept in the lounge. We got to our room and showered and came here. We’re going to email and send letters and check out the town today. We met a great couple at the winery and the woman is from Melbourne. She told us about places to check out. I ran into a girl named Helena at the hostel this morning and she was at Collaroy when we were there. She ran into Naoki at a festival yesterday. I saw a German guy here who stayed at Sydney Central. Small world, I tell you.
Cassidy is under the weather. It’s hard to slow down and catch up with your health when you’re on the move. Sometimes life seems like nothing but a series of consuming things. If people don’t eat too much, they smoke too much. If they don’t smoke too much, they drink too much. If they don’t drink too much, they do drugs or they’re obsessed with sex or something else. Teddy is on my mind. Music has been inspiring me. The more I spend time with Cassidy, the funnier she gets.
A few more stories from Collaroy: on our second night there, we went to the beach with that group of people (before we met Teddy and co.) and some drunk freak thought that Sequoia and Peter had gone swimming in the ocean and never came out. That wasn’t the case but a guy had the cops come out to the beach house and they sent out helicopters (what?!) to look for them. Sequoia didn’t know anything about it until the next morning when someone looked shocked to see her.
I am remembering the second night I knew Teddy. Cassie and I ran into him and his friends at Liquor Land buying champagne because they’d won a seafood platter. That night, he leaned over to me at the pub and said, “I thought I was going to be eating budget butter and cheap bread but I ended up eating fine food and drinking champagne.”
I like Melbourne and we’ll get to know it better than Sydney. I don’t want to go home but I don’t have much choice.
Love, Meghan
Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Dear Diary,
We went to Lygon St. yesterday. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and had wine, bruschetta, pasta, tiramisu, and coffee. We sat there for two hours. We walked to Swanston St. and heard good ambient at a place called the Lounge. Then we went to an Irish pub and played trashy slot machines. We were heading home and found a bumpin’ club with tons of people and the guys from Israel that we’d met in Bega were there. We had a drink and on our way home, we stopped at a shady bar for a night cap after asking each other, “Do we dare?” We dared, unfortunately, but we made it home.
We sent letters home and waited in the hot sun for a tram to take us to St. Kilda, an area across town. Cassidy owes me a pint because I called it when the tram came, a silly game we were playing because we were bored.
I can feel this journey winding down and I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for home at all. I’ve gotten used to waking up in hostels and this lifestyle. I don’t want to deal with going back to the way it is in Seattle. My life has taken a turn here that I didn’t expect. I need to plan a trip to Europe when I get back. I need to fill my life with images and art and stories and people.
This trip is a time warp in my life. It’s summer here and winter back home. I’m not in school. We made a home for ourselves with our little family at Collaroy and we’ve had a ball wherever we’ve been. I love all these accents and places and people and the freedom we have here. I’ve been passing through it in a dream state. I’m different here. I’m happy and so are most of the people we meet. How could we not be happy? We’re young, it’s summer, and we’re far from home and doing and seeing new things. There are other young people around us, we have money for food, drinks and cigs, and we have the world at our fingertips and infinite freedom and possibility. If that’s not the life, I don’t know what is.
Love, Meghan
Wednesday, February 17, 1999
Dear Diary,
I’m sitting on the rooftop deck of the hostel. It’s windy and beautiful today. Cassidy and I got something to eat and ran into a guy named Ed whom I met last night. We’re calling him later for suggestions on where to go in Melbourne.
Yesterday was out of control. After we took the tram to St. Kilda and wrote in a café, we got a pint next door at a British pub. Cassie and I made reservations at the hostel next to it. We met people and got on a bus to go to a club where it was all you can drink for $6. We drank beer out of buckets and then we had to get out of there. After we left, we went to Public Bar, the place where we’d run into the Israelis. A punk band was playing.
I woke up feeling depressed today. Cassidy and I had a talk about drinking and how I am escaping right now. I thought about Lucas and my life back home. The whole Lucas thing is hard. He took something from me that won’t ever be a part of me again but I don’t know what it is.
“I’ll Back You Up” by Dave Matthews Band came on and I had a memory of Sadie’s roommate and me picking Lucas up from the Greyhound station after he got out of jail. It was May and the end the school year loomed. Lucas and I lay in his bed as it got light outside and I tried to tell him the words to this song and I couldn’t get through it because I kept choking up. Thinking of being without him then was unbearable. What happened?
Now “One Sweet World” is on and I want to laugh and dance and celebrate. I don’t want to be an alcoholic. I miss Skyler. We move to St. Kilda tomorrow.
Love, Meghan
Thursday, February 18, 1999
Dear Diary,
Last night, Cassie and I met Ed at Public Bar. We puffed a joint and Cass got too stoned so she went home. Ed and I went to the Lounge to hear music and then he walked me back to the hostel.
Cassie and I came to St. Kilda today. I’m having a Stella Artois and thinking of the Brits. I emailed Nigel and Patrick today. I have to write later when my head is clearer, with a better pen and in a calmer atmosphere.
Love, Meghan
Saturday, February 20, 1999
Dear Diary,
Last night, Cassie and I played cards with two Brits, Colleen and David, who are staying in the flat we checked out of. We taught them 3-13, Idiot and Casino and they taught us a game they call Black Jack. We talked, played cards, smoked cigs, and listened to music. Then we went downstairs to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow for a night cap. Colleen and David told us about their secondary school, Steiner school. When we got back, everyone else was asleep but Colleen and I sat at the table and talked. I played “Strange Rivers” for her on my headphones. Then she got a tape from her room and played a song for me by her band that she plays guitar for. They play in and around London and I hope I can see one of their shows when I get over there.
Cassidy and I walked down Chapel St. and shopped yesterday. The night before, we went to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow for drinks. We went to another bar and met girls named Joanna and Cate. Cassie was tired so she walked home. I went to a wine bar with the girls and then we went to a place called Mink. We went back to Joanna’s flat and talked all night.
She had cancer when she was younger and her parents were told that she only had a few months to live but she recovered. Then she got into drugs but recovered from that, too. She’s from a wealthy family in Sydney. She was hospitable to me. I spent the night there and she made me breakfast in the morning. I tried Vegemite, the foulest creation. She made me Echinacea tea. I showered and we drove to find Cassidy and get coffee. Joanna took us to Chapel St. and we had an afternoon beer and chips and then she took off. I had a great time with her and I can’t believe how much we talked about.
Cass and I had a big dinner last night. We went to Victoria Market and got tons of vegetables. I was wierded out and depressed last night. I have a lot on my mind and don’t know how to deal with it. I had insane dreams last night. In one, there was a cliff you could jump off of and you’d land on a waterfall that you could slide down. I jumped the wrong way and hurt my collarbone but tried it again anyway. I dreamed I lived on the ocean in these cliffs and Lucas called me and my whole family picked up phones all over the house at the same time and adamantly told Lucas that he was never to call me again and that we’d never see each other again. I was angry but I had no control over it.
Cassidy and I are leaving St. Kilda today. We’re taking the train to a place near Monash, the university she’s going to here. I’m taking the Greyhound to Sydney tomorrow. An 18 hour ride and I don’t know if I can hang with that. Time has flown. I’ve changed and I wonder how it will all come together back home. Being here has given me a new perspective and I hope it keeps me happy on those not so great days. I have questions and confusion about certain things back home but I’m on holiday for five more days so I’ll deal with them when I get home.
Love, Meghan
Monday, February 22, 1999
Dear Diary,
I’m rambling down the road on the Greyhound. It’s 7am and I’ve been on it since 10 last night. On Saturday, Cassie and I took the tram to Flinder’s Station and rode the train through the suburbs to Glen Waverly. Dan and Carol, relatives of Cassidy’s relatives, picked us up and took us to their house. They have three boys - Colin, a little Gemini cutie of 7 years (and a new good friend of mine), John, who’s 15 and Luke who’s 17. We went to the shopping center and checked out Monash. We had bbq and stir fry for dinner. We played cards and studied maps of Australia.
Yesterday we slept until half past noon and then we all got coffee and food and drove an hour away to a park and zoo. We saw kangaroos, platypuses, koalas (my favorite), and all kinds of other Aussie wildlife. When we got back, Carol drove us to a restaurant, pokies and bar. We had a couple beers and went over the month we’ve had. We got dinner and Carol picked us up and drove us home. Dan and Cassie took me to the Greyhound station in Melbourne and I didn’t expect to feel so sad and alone when I said goodbye to Cassidy in that station. I felt like crying. We hugged three times and talked in our joking walkie talkie characters and said, “See you tomorrow.” I am going to miss her and I already feel strange without her here.
I haven’t slept yet but I feel fine. I get into Sydney at 3 today and I’ll go to the Rocks. I’m going to ask Tom to join me. He’s the “weird” English boy I met at Sydney Central hostel and he’s been emailing me. It will be entertaining. I’m on the Princes Highway again and making all the same stops but we’re going the other way and Cassidy isn’t here. I thought about Teddy this morning. And home and Lucas.
I keep thinking of when Joanna and I were walking down Fitzroy in Melbourne and we saw a dog wearing a muzzle. Joanna couldn’t stand it and said, “All anyone wants is a little love.” She said if someone gave the dog love and attention, it wouldn’t need a muzzle. That was observant of her and revealed an aspect of her character. When we talked in her room, she told me about seeing an ex-boyfriend who had cheated on her. She said to him, “Give me a hug and a kiss,” and he looked shocked. We talked about how life is too short to waste time on being angry, jealous, bitter, or unforgiving. We think you should forgive but not necessarily forget. We agreed there are a few things you can’t let slide or forgive easily but you have to choose those wisely. While we were falling asleep, we discussed making choices and how you can go down two roads and sometimes you regret the one you choose. She asked me how Lucas fits into that and I don’t know if it was the wine or me talking, but I said I could wake up next to Lucas in 20 years and be confident in the choice I made. I said that the way I feel about Lucas, we could go down infinite roads together. It’s strange to have someone like Teddy on my mind because he is the first person I fell in deep like with post-Lucas.
I’m going to miss Australia. I wish I’d been better about writing while I’ve been here. I’ve been active and it’s been hard to write. Action and doing are the nemeses of writing. I’m afraid to write about things because words do these experiences no justice. Cassidy has impressed me with her writing.
It gets foggy and misty out here and I love it. I’ve been on this bus for ten hours and it’s not been bad. Talk to me in seven more and we’ll see if that’s still true.
I keep getting memories and images of my life and my past. I’ve been having a good life since I was born. The only part that unsettles me is last summer and this past fall. It disturbs me how sad I was. It wasn’t depression. It was despair. That’s why Bellingham and my apartment and my mates’ places and that campus and those streets make me sad. It reminds me of how wrong shit went. Maybe that’s why I eased into traveling so readily. Nothing in new surroundings can remind you of home because it has the similarity of being unfamiliar. We stopped to get lunch and I’ve been talking to a Swedish guy. See you in Sydney.
Love, Meghan
(later on) I’m staying at Sydney Central and taking the bus to Collaroy tomorrow morning. I got an email from Tom with his phone number. Right now I’m chillin’ like Dylan at Bridie O’Reilly’s. I’m having a pint of Newcastle and raising my glass to Cassidy.
I can’t believe this month has gone so fast but more, that Cassidy isn’t with me. I feel like she’s back at the hostel right now. I’ve only slept for 20 minutes since yesterday morning but I feel fine. I miss Teddy but I feel silly about that. This month feels like it happened in the span of a week. I feel more at home in Sydney than I did in Melbourne. Probably because it was the first place we came to and we got to know this area well. I’m out of words.
Love, Meghan
Tuesday, February 23, 1999
Dear Diary,
I’m at Spice Bar in the seat Cassidy was sitting in when she tossed her cookies that one morning. I’m headed off to Collaroy and I can’t wait to soak up sun.
I didn’t get a hold of Tom yesterday. I went to the Rocks and got a book about Australia for Mom and a didgeridoo for Elizabeth. I need to get gifts for Dad and John.
It’s weird to be doing the morning ritual without Cassidy. I miss her. After dinner at the Rocks, I walked back to the hostel. I felt mad lonely and didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked to Oxford St. and had a drink at the Lizard Lounge. Then I went to Scruffy Murphy’s and talked to a guy who was a freak. That’s rude of me but he could not hold a conversation for the life of him. I met people from Ireland.
Love, Meghan
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Dear Diary,
It’s my last day in Australia. I’ve been ignoring what’s going on inside me. I’m at Surf Beach Café at Collaroy Beach, the place Cassie and I went in the mornings while we were here and where I sat with Teddy on my last day with him. I’m sitting where he did. I did that at Spice Bar yesterday with where Cassidy had sat. Maybe I’m trying to see things from their angles.
I felt like I was coming home, getting back to Collaroy. I saw Liam and Peter at the beach with a new crowd of travelers playing volleyball. I met two girls, Krista and Lisa, and they live in Seattle and Vancouver respectively. Krista knows Tilda and I’ve met her before at Dorian’s parties.
I’ve been thinking about Teddy and Sequoia and all the great people I’ve met here. I’m not ready to go home but I must. I have to go to Europe.
I got down on the bus yesterday, thinking about decisions I’ve made concerning guys while I’ve been here. I’m not happy about it. I lose a part of myself every time I do that. I wish I’d only hooked up with Teddy. I can’t blame Lucas for my behavior and I take full responsibility but he did a number on me. I’m fucked up in the way of guys, romance, sex, and love. I’m able to emotionally detach from guys for the first time in my life and that is lame. I use the excuse that I’ve been travelling but that’s nonsense.
Have I been like this because I need acceptance and love however I can get it since Lucas shafted me? I have to be comfortable in my own skin, make peace with my demons, and accept my losses. It will be strange to get home and realize how much I’ve changed.
Love, Meghan
(later on) I’m at Surf Rock for a beer. I need to get happier on my own terms. I have forgotten how to enjoy my own company. I don’t understand myself or anything around me.
Will I call Lucas when I get to LA? I’d like to see him but I don’t want to slip back into my old patterns and start worrying and thinking about him again.
What I would give to see Cassie, Sequoia, and the Brits walk through the door here. I saw Kyle (the one Cassie hooked up with) and gave him copies of pictures. Jane, the woman from the States that he’s crazy in love with, is coming tomorrow and I’ll miss meeting her by a few hours. Kyle talked Cassidy’s ear off about her and wouldn’t that be a story to tell if I met her. I hope Cass has found a place to live and that’s she’s alright. It must be hard for her to be in those suburbs alone with nothing to do and Monash University closed down. But orientation starts tomorrow and she’ll meet people.
I miss Teddy and I want to see him again. Traveling makes me realize that the world isn’t so big, that there are connections between people and places spanning thousands of miles.
I’ve worked myself into a place where I’m numb. I remember one night when Skyler and I were writing in Owen’s garage and I had a minor epiphany: that myself and all that’s inside me and writing are all that I need, that writing is my solace and it makes me safe. It gives me release and helps me make sense of things.
I’m unclear on what’s important. People are all that matter to me but it feels like a game. I have my friends and my family who know, love, and understand me. When it came to guys, I used to solely want to talk and relate. Now I’ve turned it into a messed up, vain situation where I see who I’m attracted to and I make it so that they are attracted to me. That’s not who I am. Jude said you always want to know that people are looking at you or digging you, but is that important? I don’t know what I want, what other people want, what is real and what is right.
I just went to the bathroom and the Surf Rock is undergoing renovations and it makes me sad. Elements to me remain the same: my nostalgia and lack of acceptance for certain kinds of change. Improvement is great but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I get an image, or I guess it’s a memory: sitting on Lucas’s bed in Bellingham (another fucking lifetime ago) during a party at his house. We were all drunk, listening to Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series. Nina, Aidan, Lucas, and I smoked a j and smoked cigs out the window and before I knew it, “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” came on, and sitting in that room under blue light with three of the most beautiful, brilliant, amazing people that I’ve ever been blessed to know, it all came together for me. It’s a comforting but sad image to think of. Like the warmth I felt when Lucas and I had just gotten together for good and when Aidan and I took a nap in his room in Fairhaven and listened to “In Spite of Me” by Morphine.
There’s a faint worry in me that I will drink too much. Everyone is either escaping or realizing that life is too extraordinary to escape from. I go through intervals of both and I hope I never get too caught up in the escaping.
There’s a song on right now saying, “Am I ever gonna to see your face again?” I wonder this about Teddy. He found me at the end of his journey. I found him at the beginning of mine. He made me feel beautiful; definitely not in the way I look, but in who I am. That’s what it’s about - when someone shows you, reflects to you or reminds you that you have so much inside yourself.
Traveling has overwhelmed me. It’s all about the people. There are billions of people, each unique and complex. Because there are so many people and each has intricacies, complexities, beauty and quirks and fucked up-ness, I have to weed through and figure out what is sacred, what works and what makes sense for me. Everyone has drama, bullshit, and goodness at the same time. I learn from humans about every aspect of life. People are all that teach and in a way that I don’t realize I’m learning. Like that quote from Taxi Driver Wisdom: “The things you love are as silly as the things you hate and are easily interchangeable.” I miss Emma. She’s someone who teaches me without either of us knowing the depth of it at the time.
Portishead is playing now. Beth Gibbons is the ultimate woman. She knows what she’s saying and she has a way about her. She reminds me of myself.
It’s pouring rain outside and rain is funny to me. It sucks and everyone hates it but it makes a place clean, fresh, and new. It reminds us that we don’t have power and control over things.
I hope I don’t get stuck here for hours, drinking beer, and writing my life away. I need to find people who will help make my last night memorable. I can’t be too sad about going home because thinking of Emma, Skyler, and Aidan, it’s worth it. We’ve got stories to exchange. Before you know it, I’ll be back at the Wagon Wheel with a cup of watery coffee, Dave’s cigarettes, and more writing.
I love life more than I did before I came here. I feel grateful, like saying, “Yes,” and, “This is how it should be,” and, “This is where I am supposed to be.” I don’t want to stop writing but I need to read. I’m a word faucet that won’t turn off. This entry is for Aidan. He’ll understand and I hope he has the patience for this.
Love, Meghan
Saturday, February 27, 1999
Dear Diary,
I’m back in Bellingham and back to West Coast time. My last night at Collaroy, we drank wine and had a bbq and then went to Surf Rock. I ran into Kyle after a few drinks and we went swimming in the pool. I got locked out of my room. He let me borrow clothes and I stayed in Cara and Sandy’s room. I said goodbye to everyone and took the bus to Sydney. I met a great girl from Brazil at the airport and loaded up on duty free stuff. The plane ride wasn’t bad but I couldn’t sleep.
After customs at LAX, I wheeled my luggage outside and someone clutched me around the waist. I turned to see Lucas. We hugged and kissed.
I called Mom to tell her I was going to stay in California for a few days and she freaked out. I got back in the car and told Lucas I had to go home that night on a later flight. We cried and he told me how much he misses me all the time and that he misses talking to me. He misses last year. He kept saying he should have stayed in Bellingham and that he’s tried to fill up his schedule but he thinks about me constantly. He’s taking 22 credits, spinning records, and rock climbing. We got a hotel room and had dinner at Hermosa Beach before he took me to the airport and we said goodbye.
I got home and slept until 3pm before driving up to Bellingham. I went to Elizabeth’s, to Skyler’s, and then to a party where I saw all the mates minus Aidan.
Love, Meghan
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