Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
really living?
stuck in this really dissonant state of feeling very productive and active and at the same time very lazy. extreme productivity in class and biking 7.5 miles to school & back every day makes me feel amazing, but when i get home, all i find myself wanting to do is curl up on the couch and drift off while watching netflix, half-eaten dinner in hand.
afraid that i'm about to start my period/fighting off a cold, because once i get tired lately, i am deliriously tired and can't get any work done, which is not me. i feel extremely disassociated lately.
hoping to wake up tomorrow not feeling like i do currently
afraid that i'm about to start my period/fighting off a cold, because once i get tired lately, i am deliriously tired and can't get any work done, which is not me. i feel extremely disassociated lately.
hoping to wake up tomorrow not feeling like i do currently
Friday, June 21, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
on emptiness, things that are over, and romanticizing silly things
no but seriously. it's like every time I come to evansville, it's the same old loop and i always write the same thing. aside from select friends who don't piss me off (blake, ivy), I generally feel reinforced in my decision to leave evansville by the time my visit is over, soaking in the few sun-streaked bits of happiness from coffee with blake or campy horror films with ivy & time spent biking or driving alone with music. these introspective moments are what I take from evansville, because there is always so much going on in Chicago that I don't get quiet moments like that in the hustle & bustle.
I hate writing so much about Dylan because when I am in Chicago and am happy, I don't think about him. but being back in evansville puts me in this weird state of being in which I am always on guard that we'll end up next to each other at a stoplight or something, and I just hate it. it makes me really self-aware, and not in a good way. I just feel like the whole breakup was this big childish thing, fuel for a melodramatic novel about the two of us standing five feet from each other behind the desk at Solaris, singing along to the same song in spite of the other. Even almost a year and a half after breaking up, he's still commenting on mutual friends' facebook statuses about how funny he is (literally "what a great comedian I am," wtf), right after I comment on it. it makes me laugh! and I'm just so glad to be over that inbred Midwestern, immature bullshit. I am thankful for the real love that we shared, but I'm done feeling sorry for myself and I'm way past feeling sorry for him. romanticizing that bullshit is over.
anyways! driving home tonight from Dustin's, the Smiths came on (melodramatic sadcore to the max) and I sang along the whole way home like an idiot, drumming on the steering wheel and everything. and I thought about all this, and how I don't want to go to Chicago on Sunday but I also don't want to stay here because I feel static. and Chicago makes me feel not static, my classes push me forward to internships and jobs and bars and relationships and becoming a real human being, not a child in the body of an almost 21-year-old. listening to sadcore music on 41 with the windows down is the only static I always enjoy, and it will probably always make me happy and will therefore get romanticized 9 ways to Sunday on here.
I'm going to paint my room when I get back, and find ways to keep moving forward.
Also, Blake: my blogger was somehow malfunctioning and didnt show your last post until just now. had I known you were feeling empty I would have brought you chai and told you all the reasons why you are my best friend in the world. I hope you are feeling less empty now <3 p="">
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
pan
for someone who has so intensely loved peter pan her entire life, i'm really surprised that it never occurred to me to read the original j.m. barrie novel until this summer. i knew that my favorite version of the film (with jeremy sumpter as peter) is heavily based on the original text, and have always loved "finding neverland," which delves into barrie's process while writing the original play & novel.
but i am amazed with how dark the novel is for a children's story, and how realistically the children are portrayed. it just fills me with such joy and fulfillment to open the book that i save it for the quiet moments before i sleep, and it has become a very special routine of this summer. i've always dreamed of having a neverland-themed wedding, and with chantel's wedding so close & being so involved in it, romance and weddings have been on my mind a lot lately.
i don't know what it is about peter pan, but it's one of those things that i love so much that it makes me cry if i think too long on it. kind of like leslie and ben, "romeo + juliet," and my interpretation of zelda and f. scott fitzgerald's relationship, it's just one of those things that i think will always make me feel a melancholy type of fulfillment.
sometimes i feel the same way about old happy memories of dylan and i, and when i get messages from my uncle bill or mamaw eileen at church, like when my mom tells me that the way my pinky fingers curve in when my hands are working comes from my dad's mom, who died right after i was born. something that feels right and sad and spiritual and meant to be all at once.
but i am amazed with how dark the novel is for a children's story, and how realistically the children are portrayed. it just fills me with such joy and fulfillment to open the book that i save it for the quiet moments before i sleep, and it has become a very special routine of this summer. i've always dreamed of having a neverland-themed wedding, and with chantel's wedding so close & being so involved in it, romance and weddings have been on my mind a lot lately.
i don't know what it is about peter pan, but it's one of those things that i love so much that it makes me cry if i think too long on it. kind of like leslie and ben, "romeo + juliet," and my interpretation of zelda and f. scott fitzgerald's relationship, it's just one of those things that i think will always make me feel a melancholy type of fulfillment.
sometimes i feel the same way about old happy memories of dylan and i, and when i get messages from my uncle bill or mamaw eileen at church, like when my mom tells me that the way my pinky fingers curve in when my hands are working comes from my dad's mom, who died right after i was born. something that feels right and sad and spiritual and meant to be all at once.
Friday, May 10, 2013
5:36
today's the last day of classes before my senior year of undergrad & i'm feeling incredibly calm for such a ridiculous day.
pretty much, i woke up at 430 to finish some work for my class today, already going off of sleep deprivation.
i forgot my wallet & couldn't print anything for my final crit, so i have to put all my work in my teacher's mailbox by next friday (no big, but stressful & embarrassing)
i had to say goodbye to tj
a red line derailed over red & brown tracks, so i had to take 2 different trains to a bus just to get home. it took over an hour and a half, when it usually take me about 30 minutes to get home. frustrating.
then i slept from 2-7, at which point i went to lakeview to get art supplies & work. i didn't end up leaving the area until 3am, at which point i had to get a cab because the brown line was closed for the night.
since 3 i've been finishing up this project, and after fighting with my dumbass printer for the past hour, i'm finally just a few quick steps from being finished for good. and that's super exciting.
the sun is coming up right now & i don't have to be at class until 10, and although i'm tired and have a lot to get done before i leave my house, tomorrow is Summer. like, SUMMER. summer in the city. i can ride my bike and walk gitsy and do art for fun.
i'm just really ready to be able to process this semester, do fun stuff, relax. and to get a break from daniella for a bit. things are just stressful with school, but hopefully that will be fixed after tomorrow!
anyway my prints finished so i have to go work now!
pretty much, i woke up at 430 to finish some work for my class today, already going off of sleep deprivation.
i forgot my wallet & couldn't print anything for my final crit, so i have to put all my work in my teacher's mailbox by next friday (no big, but stressful & embarrassing)
i had to say goodbye to tj
a red line derailed over red & brown tracks, so i had to take 2 different trains to a bus just to get home. it took over an hour and a half, when it usually take me about 30 minutes to get home. frustrating.
then i slept from 2-7, at which point i went to lakeview to get art supplies & work. i didn't end up leaving the area until 3am, at which point i had to get a cab because the brown line was closed for the night.
since 3 i've been finishing up this project, and after fighting with my dumbass printer for the past hour, i'm finally just a few quick steps from being finished for good. and that's super exciting.
the sun is coming up right now & i don't have to be at class until 10, and although i'm tired and have a lot to get done before i leave my house, tomorrow is Summer. like, SUMMER. summer in the city. i can ride my bike and walk gitsy and do art for fun.
i'm just really ready to be able to process this semester, do fun stuff, relax. and to get a break from daniella for a bit. things are just stressful with school, but hopefully that will be fixed after tomorrow!
anyway my prints finished so i have to go work now!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
love's not punk (first draft)
sometime in the last year, something within me changed. i find myself overwhelmed with love for the people in my life. i cried all day at a friend's bridal shower a few weeks ago. i can't even make it through an episode of grey's anatomy without choking back tears.
when i told my mom i thought i was broken, she said you are not broken, you are grown up. you are looking at the world around you and seeing the possibility for your future. you are appreciating the human experience.
emotion is described on dictionary.com as an "affective state of consciousness." feeling is a form of consciousness, something that lets us know we are human. we fear pyscho- and sociopaths because they lack empathy. horror books and movies villainize the rise of unfeeling robots and computers. almost every romantic movie delves into the pitfalls of unspoken love between two people. stories of people like kitty genovese, who died because of social indifference, are widely televised.
and yet every day, i am amazed at the indifference i see in the city around me. by the time we are teenagers, we have been trained by society not to show people that we care. it's cool to not give a shit about anything. it's easy to numb yourself to pain, to keep others in the dark about who you really are and what's going on inside you. when i was in high school, i wanted to be blase. in training to be indifferent, i didn't tell anyone i loved them or permit myself to hate. i learned to love in the dark.
but when you are 16 and your mom gets her own room in the ICU of Mayo Clinic,
when you are 17 and your best friend gets so guilty she stops eating,
when you are 18 and you are alone, hundreds of miles from home,
when you are 19 and the only boy you've ever loved puts a gun to his head,
you have to stop loving in the dark.
eighteen
i held the bloody hand of a boyfriend after he punched a hole through his door big enough to match the hole in his heart. i watched friend after friend break down, drop out, lock themselves away. i saw family members betrayed and stomped on by people they trusted. i witnessed my mom cry for the first time. these experiences taught me that telling someone to chin up, to feel better, to stop crying, denies the right to having that emotion, the right to humanness.
your emotions are important and relevant. you are not less valid for waking up crying or pissing yourself laughing. you are not stupid or childish for being so happy you could scream or being mad enough to break an entire china set. cool indifference is bullshit. letting yourself become numb only works for so long.
i never saw my best friend cry until she fell in love with someone her parents hated. somewhere between putting her family relationships at risk and knowing it was the right thing to do, she grew up, became secure enough to be vulnerable. she was 19.
the summer before i moved to chicago, my mom covered up her sorrow so severely that i thought she didn't care that i was leaving until she broke down a week before i left. she was 44.
my great-grandma spent the better part of her life spewing disdain and dressing herself in callousness. when she got dementia in old age, she forgot how to be indifferent. she cried, told us she loved us, asked us to stay with her. she was 92.
it has taken me 20 years, a lot of heartache, and my best friend saying, "i am so glad you wrote this" to get here, to this paradigm shift. to realize that apathy is overrated. to appreciate my own very human experience. to bleed compassion. to let love in.
i always used to stress out about whether or not i was happy, whether or not i was still a good person, whether or not i was whole. in the last year i have come to recognize that as long as your emotions aren't permitting you to harm others, you are still a good person. that the point of life is not to be happy or whole, it is to be chipped and broken and real. to appreciate the ups and downs of being a fallible living creature who has the very special privilege of experiencing emotion.
following is a collection of quotes i have found relating to this topic as well as lyrics, art, stories, and poems that were submitted to me by my friends and colleagues for use in this zine.
when i told my mom i thought i was broken, she said you are not broken, you are grown up. you are looking at the world around you and seeing the possibility for your future. you are appreciating the human experience.
emotion is described on dictionary.com as an "affective state of consciousness." feeling is a form of consciousness, something that lets us know we are human. we fear pyscho- and sociopaths because they lack empathy. horror books and movies villainize the rise of unfeeling robots and computers. almost every romantic movie delves into the pitfalls of unspoken love between two people. stories of people like kitty genovese, who died because of social indifference, are widely televised.
and yet every day, i am amazed at the indifference i see in the city around me. by the time we are teenagers, we have been trained by society not to show people that we care. it's cool to not give a shit about anything. it's easy to numb yourself to pain, to keep others in the dark about who you really are and what's going on inside you. when i was in high school, i wanted to be blase. in training to be indifferent, i didn't tell anyone i loved them or permit myself to hate. i learned to love in the dark.
but when you are 16 and your mom gets her own room in the ICU of Mayo Clinic,
when you are 17 and your best friend gets so guilty she stops eating,
when you are 18 and you are alone, hundreds of miles from home,
when you are 19 and the only boy you've ever loved puts a gun to his head,
you have to stop loving in the dark.
eighteen
i held the bloody hand of a boyfriend after he punched a hole through his door big enough to match the hole in his heart. i watched friend after friend break down, drop out, lock themselves away. i saw family members betrayed and stomped on by people they trusted. i witnessed my mom cry for the first time. these experiences taught me that telling someone to chin up, to feel better, to stop crying, denies the right to having that emotion, the right to humanness.
your emotions are important and relevant. you are not less valid for waking up crying or pissing yourself laughing. you are not stupid or childish for being so happy you could scream or being mad enough to break an entire china set. cool indifference is bullshit. letting yourself become numb only works for so long.
i never saw my best friend cry until she fell in love with someone her parents hated. somewhere between putting her family relationships at risk and knowing it was the right thing to do, she grew up, became secure enough to be vulnerable. she was 19.
the summer before i moved to chicago, my mom covered up her sorrow so severely that i thought she didn't care that i was leaving until she broke down a week before i left. she was 44.
my great-grandma spent the better part of her life spewing disdain and dressing herself in callousness. when she got dementia in old age, she forgot how to be indifferent. she cried, told us she loved us, asked us to stay with her. she was 92.
it has taken me 20 years, a lot of heartache, and my best friend saying, "i am so glad you wrote this" to get here, to this paradigm shift. to realize that apathy is overrated. to appreciate my own very human experience. to bleed compassion. to let love in.
i always used to stress out about whether or not i was happy, whether or not i was still a good person, whether or not i was whole. in the last year i have come to recognize that as long as your emotions aren't permitting you to harm others, you are still a good person. that the point of life is not to be happy or whole, it is to be chipped and broken and real. to appreciate the ups and downs of being a fallible living creature who has the very special privilege of experiencing emotion.
following is a collection of quotes i have found relating to this topic as well as lyrics, art, stories, and poems that were submitted to me by my friends and colleagues for use in this zine.
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