Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
hype
Now Playing: L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N by Noah & the Whale (she had deep brown eyes that have seen it all)
I've just downloaded The Hunger Games trilogy onto my iPad. I'm only a few pages in and I. Am. In. Love.
I'm very very fussy over my reading list - and I ordinarily just re-read old favourites over and over. I just found my copy of Caesar's Women (it was hiding in the gap between my bed and the wall) and I read it again in the bathtub. My copy of The Time Traveller's Wife is well-loved. Harry Potter is more than thoroughly bashed up.
But I don't buy into 'hype'. I very rarely get into 'popular' books - I haven't since my Twilight days. I just have a very low opinion of popular opinion at the moment - the by product of going to a very indie school with very indie people; so indie that even 'indie' is too mainstream. That being said, though, sometimes at Perth Mod mainstream became the new indie, in that it was looked down upon as cheap trash just like mainstream crowds look down on indie stuff for being artsy shit.
The reason why I can't really dig into popular literature is because, to be honest, my obsession with Twilight scared me. It still scares me. Sometimes I find myself in situations where I am in, or lust after, what could honestly be considered abusive relationships. Twilight glorifies abusive relationships and for a long time, as a naive impressionable little girl, that was what I thought I wanted and actively sought. In a way I'm glad that being unlucky in love has protected me from the consequences of the dangerous shit I relentlessly pursued.
As a novice writer my writing is probably too influenced by other literature than more established writers. I looked back at some of the stuff I wrote when I was a younger teen and I was horrified by how...similar it was to Twilight. The plaguerism didn't bother me per se - what else do you expect from a twelve year old wannabe writer? - but the fact that I had cut copy pasted the violence of Edward into my male characters, the weak damsel in distress, never stands up for herself female characters, the abusive arcs of the relationships. I deleted about 40,000+ words of hard work and I've been too scared since to really invest time into something like that.
So with all that said, when The Hunger Games became a thing, I immediately was a little wary. I don't like popular fiction per se - I'm quite discriminating in my books and aside from Harry Potter and a few classics I don't think my reading list is a very popular one. And the Stephenie Meyer testimony sprawled across the front really put me off, too. Not another Twilight. Puh-lease.
I really wanted to read a book where the emphasis on female characters was on 'characters', not 'female'. I wanted to read a book where women didn't become men to be characters of substance; I wanted characters that reinforced that femaleness is a source of strength just as much as maleness is. Off the top of my head I can't really think of really good female heroines that stand out aside from perhaps a few characters in Harry Potter. I really dislike how women are portrayed in popular culture and it is really impacting on my love of books and movies - as you can see from my dissection of American Beauty.
My friends have all seen/watched The Hunger Games. I like the look of it, and I know the storyline. I've got two songs off of the soundtrack - Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars and Abraham's Daughter by Arcade Fire. Further, The Hunger Games has the unusual distinction of being recommended by feminists! Laci Green, Feminist Frequency, Bitch Magazine all recommend it, and especially commend the depiction of Katniss.
And so I gave in.
I like books that some people consider 'easy'. To me, reading has never been a challenge, and shouldn't be. I read for pleasure. I associate reading with relaxation - I do most of my reading in the bathtub (my copy of Eclipse is very badly water damaged, but I can't really say that's a loss to anyone) or in bed, and so I don't like headache-inducing plotlines and pretentious prose.
I downloaded the kobo app onto my iPad (the best reader app in my opinion, although the books are somewhat limited) and bought the entire Hunger Games trilogy. I've only had time to read about ten pages or so but I am so in love. It's a real page turner. I've got the whole thing so I'm going to be well and truly occupied on my way to Korea.
I've just downloaded The Hunger Games trilogy onto my iPad. I'm only a few pages in and I. Am. In. Love.
I'm very very fussy over my reading list - and I ordinarily just re-read old favourites over and over. I just found my copy of Caesar's Women (it was hiding in the gap between my bed and the wall) and I read it again in the bathtub. My copy of The Time Traveller's Wife is well-loved. Harry Potter is more than thoroughly bashed up.
But I don't buy into 'hype'. I very rarely get into 'popular' books - I haven't since my Twilight days. I just have a very low opinion of popular opinion at the moment - the by product of going to a very indie school with very indie people; so indie that even 'indie' is too mainstream. That being said, though, sometimes at Perth Mod mainstream became the new indie, in that it was looked down upon as cheap trash just like mainstream crowds look down on indie stuff for being artsy shit.
The reason why I can't really dig into popular literature is because, to be honest, my obsession with Twilight scared me. It still scares me. Sometimes I find myself in situations where I am in, or lust after, what could honestly be considered abusive relationships. Twilight glorifies abusive relationships and for a long time, as a naive impressionable little girl, that was what I thought I wanted and actively sought. In a way I'm glad that being unlucky in love has protected me from the consequences of the dangerous shit I relentlessly pursued.
As a novice writer my writing is probably too influenced by other literature than more established writers. I looked back at some of the stuff I wrote when I was a younger teen and I was horrified by how...similar it was to Twilight. The plaguerism didn't bother me per se - what else do you expect from a twelve year old wannabe writer? - but the fact that I had cut copy pasted the violence of Edward into my male characters, the weak damsel in distress, never stands up for herself female characters, the abusive arcs of the relationships. I deleted about 40,000+ words of hard work and I've been too scared since to really invest time into something like that.
So with all that said, when The Hunger Games became a thing, I immediately was a little wary. I don't like popular fiction per se - I'm quite discriminating in my books and aside from Harry Potter and a few classics I don't think my reading list is a very popular one. And the Stephenie Meyer testimony sprawled across the front really put me off, too. Not another Twilight. Puh-lease.
I really wanted to read a book where the emphasis on female characters was on 'characters', not 'female'. I wanted to read a book where women didn't become men to be characters of substance; I wanted characters that reinforced that femaleness is a source of strength just as much as maleness is. Off the top of my head I can't really think of really good female heroines that stand out aside from perhaps a few characters in Harry Potter. I really dislike how women are portrayed in popular culture and it is really impacting on my love of books and movies - as you can see from my dissection of American Beauty.
My friends have all seen/watched The Hunger Games. I like the look of it, and I know the storyline. I've got two songs off of the soundtrack - Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars and Abraham's Daughter by Arcade Fire. Further, The Hunger Games has the unusual distinction of being recommended by feminists! Laci Green, Feminist Frequency, Bitch Magazine all recommend it, and especially commend the depiction of Katniss.
And so I gave in.
I like books that some people consider 'easy'. To me, reading has never been a challenge, and shouldn't be. I read for pleasure. I associate reading with relaxation - I do most of my reading in the bathtub (my copy of Eclipse is very badly water damaged, but I can't really say that's a loss to anyone) or in bed, and so I don't like headache-inducing plotlines and pretentious prose.
I downloaded the kobo app onto my iPad (the best reader app in my opinion, although the books are somewhat limited) and bought the entire Hunger Games trilogy. I've only had time to read about ten pages or so but I am so in love. It's a real page turner. I've got the whole thing so I'm going to be well and truly occupied on my way to Korea.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
the best I can be
Now Playing: Sophia by Laura Marling (I'm wounded by dust)
I feel like, lately, I'm not being the best I can be. I am not the best version of myself.
Which is an odd thing to say when you're supposedly at the top of the world. I mean, seriously. WACE is over. I've graduated in the hottest, sweatiest, longest grad ceremony in the history of the world. I'm top in English in the state's top school.
But I still feel like something is missing. There is something about me - and it's not friends, it's not boys, it's not anything to do with people or me blaming my problems on the fickleness of teenage love - that is absent, a nonevent, something that should be but isn't. I feel as hollow and as shallow as the people I love to hate.
A few days ago I went to the beach with my friends and, admittedly, the beach doesn't particularly like me. I don't like sand. I don't like seaweed and any bugs or fish or...sharks...that might be part and parcel with the waves. I haven't got the most amazing bikini body (although losing 10kg this year did help) and although I can swim I'm not very strong and I'm more of a chlorinated pool sort of person rather than a lets-swim-into-this-big-ass-wave girl. I had to be taught how to jump over and dive into waves and I got dumped lots of times. The beach where we went to dips suddenly into rocky...dips...(epic English skills happening here) and I'm only 5'2" and I'm very uncomfortable when I can't touch the bottom. So in amongst all of that, I got into trouble a few times. But I was always with my friends, and there were always better people to wade out to get me, always better people to hold my hand, always better people to pull me back to safety.
I feel a bit like that now. Being kicked out of high school is like being tossed into the deep end. I can't touch the bottom and I keep going under and yes, I'm terrified. But it's also exciting, being one of the grown ups, I just don't know how to...comport, not just yet. I don't know how to carry myself. I went out and wore what felt like the first non school related clothes ever and I felt like someone else, as if it was someone else sipping iced coffee and chatting to my best friend. I didn't really feel like me.
I've spent my whole life in a tiny little world with what I now know to be problems that are all at once tiny and little but also big and huge and momentous. I don't know what it's like to wake up and not robotically put on uniform, slug my backpack on, throw a packed lunch together and run for the bus. One of these tiny little big huge momentous problems is that I was hurt this year, by people I thought were my friends, and as a consequence 2012 is one of the most lonely years that I can remember. Another one of those tiny little big huge momentous problems is that I was fucked over, quite literally, by someone I trusted, someone I thought of as my dearest friend but who I actually can't say anything to without blushing/sparking a big fight/all of the above, and now I don't know if our friendship will survive the week, much less the summer. These problems are tiny and little in the grand scheme of things, but people forget the big huge momentous emotions and repercussions of these tiny little problems, and how until I get out of this liminal space between baby high school and big kid uni these tiny little big huge momentous problems are stopping me from being the best I can be, from being the best version of myself. It's pretty claustrophobic in a cocoon but I want to come out of it a butterfly, not some half-mutated caterpillar.
I think this is compounded by the fact that high school literally means nothing, and for all the teen angst and hormone drama and touchy feely of it all high school will get you nowhere, given the academic inflation, and the adolescent years are the most ridiculed in literature and popular culture. It's humiliating that all these tiny little big huge momentous problems will be laughed off at some point in the future, but for now you just don't have the wisdom and the age and the mental capacity to detach yourself and to get over it.
I am my own harshest critic. Nobody is crueller to me than myself, and what I put myself through. But at the same time, through being fearless and trying to begin again, I am also learning to be forgiving - not of my faults, but of the things that make me human. I've taught myself that it's okay to cry, okay to be hurt, okay to be angry, okay to love, okay to hate. Everything I feel is not a mistake. And given this, when I start annoying myself with how I behave in the heat of the moment, I know I'm not being the best I can be. This is beyond my normal insecurity and self-esteem issues. I really, genuinely know that I am not the best version of myself just yet, and all I can ask of you is that you love me still, and be patient, because I'll always be there for you and I'll let you get away with murder. All I can ask is that you be the better person who wades out to get me and pull me to safety, in the assurance that I will always return the favour. All I can ask is for the kind of love that should endure in sickness and in health, through good and bad, till something tiny little big huge momentous do us part.
Or something like that.
I feel like, lately, I'm not being the best I can be. I am not the best version of myself.
Which is an odd thing to say when you're supposedly at the top of the world. I mean, seriously. WACE is over. I've graduated in the hottest, sweatiest, longest grad ceremony in the history of the world. I'm top in English in the state's top school.
But I still feel like something is missing. There is something about me - and it's not friends, it's not boys, it's not anything to do with people or me blaming my problems on the fickleness of teenage love - that is absent, a nonevent, something that should be but isn't. I feel as hollow and as shallow as the people I love to hate.
A few days ago I went to the beach with my friends and, admittedly, the beach doesn't particularly like me. I don't like sand. I don't like seaweed and any bugs or fish or...sharks...that might be part and parcel with the waves. I haven't got the most amazing bikini body (although losing 10kg this year did help) and although I can swim I'm not very strong and I'm more of a chlorinated pool sort of person rather than a lets-swim-into-this-big-ass-wave girl. I had to be taught how to jump over and dive into waves and I got dumped lots of times. The beach where we went to dips suddenly into rocky...dips...(epic English skills happening here) and I'm only 5'2" and I'm very uncomfortable when I can't touch the bottom. So in amongst all of that, I got into trouble a few times. But I was always with my friends, and there were always better people to wade out to get me, always better people to hold my hand, always better people to pull me back to safety.
I feel a bit like that now. Being kicked out of high school is like being tossed into the deep end. I can't touch the bottom and I keep going under and yes, I'm terrified. But it's also exciting, being one of the grown ups, I just don't know how to...comport, not just yet. I don't know how to carry myself. I went out and wore what felt like the first non school related clothes ever and I felt like someone else, as if it was someone else sipping iced coffee and chatting to my best friend. I didn't really feel like me.
I've spent my whole life in a tiny little world with what I now know to be problems that are all at once tiny and little but also big and huge and momentous. I don't know what it's like to wake up and not robotically put on uniform, slug my backpack on, throw a packed lunch together and run for the bus. One of these tiny little big huge momentous problems is that I was hurt this year, by people I thought were my friends, and as a consequence 2012 is one of the most lonely years that I can remember. Another one of those tiny little big huge momentous problems is that I was fucked over, quite literally, by someone I trusted, someone I thought of as my dearest friend but who I actually can't say anything to without blushing/sparking a big fight/all of the above, and now I don't know if our friendship will survive the week, much less the summer. These problems are tiny and little in the grand scheme of things, but people forget the big huge momentous emotions and repercussions of these tiny little problems, and how until I get out of this liminal space between baby high school and big kid uni these tiny little big huge momentous problems are stopping me from being the best I can be, from being the best version of myself. It's pretty claustrophobic in a cocoon but I want to come out of it a butterfly, not some half-mutated caterpillar.
I think this is compounded by the fact that high school literally means nothing, and for all the teen angst and hormone drama and touchy feely of it all high school will get you nowhere, given the academic inflation, and the adolescent years are the most ridiculed in literature and popular culture. It's humiliating that all these tiny little big huge momentous problems will be laughed off at some point in the future, but for now you just don't have the wisdom and the age and the mental capacity to detach yourself and to get over it.
I am my own harshest critic. Nobody is crueller to me than myself, and what I put myself through. But at the same time, through being fearless and trying to begin again, I am also learning to be forgiving - not of my faults, but of the things that make me human. I've taught myself that it's okay to cry, okay to be hurt, okay to be angry, okay to love, okay to hate. Everything I feel is not a mistake. And given this, when I start annoying myself with how I behave in the heat of the moment, I know I'm not being the best I can be. This is beyond my normal insecurity and self-esteem issues. I really, genuinely know that I am not the best version of myself just yet, and all I can ask of you is that you love me still, and be patient, because I'll always be there for you and I'll let you get away with murder. All I can ask is that you be the better person who wades out to get me and pull me to safety, in the assurance that I will always return the favour. All I can ask is for the kind of love that should endure in sickness and in health, through good and bad, till something tiny little big huge momentous do us part.
Or something like that.
Never Grow Up: A Letter to Twelve Year Old Me
Now Playing: Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift (don't lose the way you dance around in your pjs getting ready for school)
Wow, I have not written one of these in a long long long long time.
Dearest Twelve,
You're on the home stretch, dearest Twelve. Don't give up just yet. You're going to high school next year and you just can't wait.
You become as rebellious as you dare, what with being a conservative Asian and all. You wear makeup to school, but that's less of a rebellion and more an act of desperate insecurity - acne happens this year, dearest Twelve, and four years later I can't really say it's fucked off just yet. You wear your hear down - shock horror! - and roll your eyes whenever you get told off. You wear black knee high socks with purple hearts and skull motif loafers. You know you don't look particularly avant garde, dearest Twelve, but you're desperate for a little individuality.
You're a bit of a douche, to be honest, dearest Twelve. I know you're small and hurt and vulnerable inside, but the shell you create for yourself is a bit...bitchy. You become very proud and arrogant this year and I don't know if I've entirely shaken that off. It's a good mask to hide your tears, dearest Twelve, but it's not exactly endearing. I wish I could have told you not to, but to be perfectly honest, I don't really have a better solution. Being nice just doesn't work for the moment. So keep wearing your armour, dearest Twelve. Do whatever it takes to stay strong.
But it's not all gloom and doom, dearest Twelve. You've got the Gang of Four and they love you for who you are. The proof? You met up with one of them four years later in the pouring rain, and you ate chocolate and burgers and chattered the whole night long, and it was like I was twelve years old again. Well, it was, until we started talking about some distinctly sixteen year old stuff.
BSC happens this year, dearest Twelve. You've never been so in love, and a thousand different emotions flood through you every heartbeat - love, jealousy, all of it. You've never wanted something so badly, and for the first time you've got something to lose. But don't worry, dearest Twelve. I know you hate hearing this, but you're only twelve. I promise you, you'll get over it. And there are slightly better losers to waste your time with.
Dearest Twelve, it's the start of something new next year. Don't worry about primary school. Don't worry about all the little things that are big things when you're twelve. What I love most about you, dearest Twelve, is that you're more in touch with reality than people give you credit for. Primary school isn't real, dearest Twelve. And it's a waste of energy trying to kiss it goodbye.
Love,
Nearly Seventeen
Wow, I have not written one of these in a long long long long time.
Dearest Twelve,
You're on the home stretch, dearest Twelve. Don't give up just yet. You're going to high school next year and you just can't wait.
You become as rebellious as you dare, what with being a conservative Asian and all. You wear makeup to school, but that's less of a rebellion and more an act of desperate insecurity - acne happens this year, dearest Twelve, and four years later I can't really say it's fucked off just yet. You wear your hear down - shock horror! - and roll your eyes whenever you get told off. You wear black knee high socks with purple hearts and skull motif loafers. You know you don't look particularly avant garde, dearest Twelve, but you're desperate for a little individuality.
You're a bit of a douche, to be honest, dearest Twelve. I know you're small and hurt and vulnerable inside, but the shell you create for yourself is a bit...bitchy. You become very proud and arrogant this year and I don't know if I've entirely shaken that off. It's a good mask to hide your tears, dearest Twelve, but it's not exactly endearing. I wish I could have told you not to, but to be perfectly honest, I don't really have a better solution. Being nice just doesn't work for the moment. So keep wearing your armour, dearest Twelve. Do whatever it takes to stay strong.
But it's not all gloom and doom, dearest Twelve. You've got the Gang of Four and they love you for who you are. The proof? You met up with one of them four years later in the pouring rain, and you ate chocolate and burgers and chattered the whole night long, and it was like I was twelve years old again. Well, it was, until we started talking about some distinctly sixteen year old stuff.
BSC happens this year, dearest Twelve. You've never been so in love, and a thousand different emotions flood through you every heartbeat - love, jealousy, all of it. You've never wanted something so badly, and for the first time you've got something to lose. But don't worry, dearest Twelve. I know you hate hearing this, but you're only twelve. I promise you, you'll get over it. And there are slightly better losers to waste your time with.
Dearest Twelve, it's the start of something new next year. Don't worry about primary school. Don't worry about all the little things that are big things when you're twelve. What I love most about you, dearest Twelve, is that you're more in touch with reality than people give you credit for. Primary school isn't real, dearest Twelve. And it's a waste of energy trying to kiss it goodbye.
Love,
Nearly Seventeen
infinity
Now Playing: L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N by Noah & the Whale (but to a writer the truth is no big deal)
So as I was falling asleep last night I had so many ideas swirling around in my head about a blog post called 'infinity'.
And now I have no idea what I wanted to say.
I'm tired of being considered as a finite resource. It seems a bit sexist, a bit objectifying, a bit of an underestimation of what I am and what I can do. I'm not even treated as something finite, anyway - I am not precious or special in any way to anyone. So why do people insist on treating me like my love and my patience is endless, but tell me off when I am too free with it?
I'm not made of stone. People hurt me, all the time. I know I trust too much, but I don't think I ask too much in return. It's sad that we live in a world where we are wary of love, where someone who is selfless must always be suspected of ulterior motives.
What is with this thinking, anyway? If I love someone, I can always love someone else. I have more than enough love to go around. You hear so many stories of spouses being jealous of their partner's friends, even their parents and children - as if loving others stops someone from loving you. Exclusivity only leads to loneliness. People can't bear the idea of me being able to love another just as I love them, and that I can leave people who hurt me.
I guess it's because I'm from a very large extended Asian family - all the people I know love me dearly love many other people equally, and it is something I have had to accept. In a few days I'm going to live with my family in Korea for a little while, and I love them dearly - I love them because they have more love than I have ever seen, their love is endless and unconditional and beautiful. They love so many so deeply. I have never had one person all to myself, and I don't think it's right to wish for that. It seems, to me, selfish and greedy. Maybe that's where the stereotype that men don't like children come from - I know I have been known to just go a little bit batshit over pinching baby cheeks and making goo goo eyes at toddlers.
Sex is also given the same treatment. If it's the same deed done under the same circumstances it will always be the same. Women are not cars (value decreases with each use) or batteries (finite). Women are people.
A lot of people ask me why I still dive in head first even though I should probably be a little more careful. Mostly it's because I'm young and stupid and reckless and impatient and just a little too hormone driven. But it's also because I know I can bounce back from anything - it's kind of what being a girl and a feminist and a hospital baby and just a person has taught me over the past sixteen years. It's because I know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and memories are memories - the good, the bad, the ugly, they all mean something. And I know that love can't be wasted, or used up, or evaporate of its own accord. I know that even though people break me like a promise and it feels like I'm tripping around from lover to lover, it'll all be worth it, and it's the journey that counts just as much as the destination. I know that my love is infinite, and if I never try I'll never know just what I'm worth.
So as I was falling asleep last night I had so many ideas swirling around in my head about a blog post called 'infinity'.
And now I have no idea what I wanted to say.
I'm tired of being considered as a finite resource. It seems a bit sexist, a bit objectifying, a bit of an underestimation of what I am and what I can do. I'm not even treated as something finite, anyway - I am not precious or special in any way to anyone. So why do people insist on treating me like my love and my patience is endless, but tell me off when I am too free with it?
I'm not made of stone. People hurt me, all the time. I know I trust too much, but I don't think I ask too much in return. It's sad that we live in a world where we are wary of love, where someone who is selfless must always be suspected of ulterior motives.
What is with this thinking, anyway? If I love someone, I can always love someone else. I have more than enough love to go around. You hear so many stories of spouses being jealous of their partner's friends, even their parents and children - as if loving others stops someone from loving you. Exclusivity only leads to loneliness. People can't bear the idea of me being able to love another just as I love them, and that I can leave people who hurt me.
I guess it's because I'm from a very large extended Asian family - all the people I know love me dearly love many other people equally, and it is something I have had to accept. In a few days I'm going to live with my family in Korea for a little while, and I love them dearly - I love them because they have more love than I have ever seen, their love is endless and unconditional and beautiful. They love so many so deeply. I have never had one person all to myself, and I don't think it's right to wish for that. It seems, to me, selfish and greedy. Maybe that's where the stereotype that men don't like children come from - I know I have been known to just go a little bit batshit over pinching baby cheeks and making goo goo eyes at toddlers.
Sex is also given the same treatment. If it's the same deed done under the same circumstances it will always be the same. Women are not cars (value decreases with each use) or batteries (finite). Women are people.
A lot of people ask me why I still dive in head first even though I should probably be a little more careful. Mostly it's because I'm young and stupid and reckless and impatient and just a little too hormone driven. But it's also because I know I can bounce back from anything - it's kind of what being a girl and a feminist and a hospital baby and just a person has taught me over the past sixteen years. It's because I know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and memories are memories - the good, the bad, the ugly, they all mean something. And I know that love can't be wasted, or used up, or evaporate of its own accord. I know that even though people break me like a promise and it feels like I'm tripping around from lover to lover, it'll all be worth it, and it's the journey that counts just as much as the destination. I know that my love is infinite, and if I never try I'll never know just what I'm worth.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
the best in people
Now Playing: All Too Well by Taylor Swift (so casually cruel in the name of being honest)
I always thought it was a good thing that I always try to see the best in people.
I know it's totally incongruous with how bitter and cynical I have become, but I've never fully lost my ability to look at people with baby-eyed awe.
It's not like I've never been hurt. I've been hurt before - by friends, by boys, by teachers, by random strangers on the street, by myself. But I've never lost the feeling that everyone deserves a chance, that you don't have the right to judge people you've never met, that you can't jump to conclusions about people you don't know, and that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. It's the kind of treatment I want and expect, but hardly ever get. I always try to think the best of people until it is really too impossible to ever think highly of them ever again.
I think it's part of the double-edged sword of being a feminist. I'm not a princess, and this ain't a fairytale, in the words of Taylor Swift. I don't like the idea of being locked up in a tower waiting for Prince Charming - I'm not that much of a dreamer. I don't believe in waiting for friends and for love to come to you - sometimes, when you want something, you have to get off your ass and go for it. Yes, you might get rejected, used, hurt, humiliated. But you can also fall in love, create the greatest of friendships, be the happiest you've ever been. I don't like waiting for people to give me things - sometimes I have to be brave and make the first move. Which means that yes, sometimes I give people too much trust and love and faith than they deserve, than they are worthy of. But my love is not a commodity, it's not a finite resource. I have more than enough love to go around. Accuse me of anything, but you can never say that I didn't love you enough.
I don't understand how to be reserved. I can't do it. I love people and I want to know everything about them and I want them to know everything about me. I hate misunderstandings - I hate misunderstanding people and I hate people misunderstanding me. And I don't think the journey is slowly discovering someone iota by iota - I think the journey should start together, as equals, as people who click. I can't wait for that.
Next year I'll be meeting lots of people. And I'm sure I'll be too trusting and have faith in the wrong people and know the longing of loving all the wrong things. But I am the eternal optimist, and the self-confessed romantic - I believe that there is good in everybody. I'll probably end up hating a lot of people and making a lot of enemies, to be perfectly honest - because I know I'm not the most lovable person in the world and I rub plenty of people the wrong way. But I promise you, I don't judge. I give everyone a shot. If I get hurt in the process, then such is life. It's what I'll do for you, so that you all have a fair chance of stealing a little piece of my heart. If things don't work out between you and me, it won't be because I've pulled a Lizzy Bennett and judged you on first impressions.
I'm stronger than I look, and I'm not naive as you think. I don't think the world of everyone because I think absolutely everyone is worthy of my high esteem - if I've learnt anything in sixteen years of being me, it's that people can be horrible, and people can hurt you. But I think we all deserve a chance. Don't you?
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Begin Again
Now Playing: Begin Again by Taylor Swift (you don't know how nice that is, but I do)
Begin Again has launched!
I'm back from high school graduation and I'm exhausted. I'm in my flannel sweatpants and my favourite pumpkin orange sweater. My graduation certificate and my Ella Mackay Award for English are next to me on my desk. And I'm deliriously exhausted and happy.
By the way, this is my first post published from my iPad :P. I'm practicing touch typing on my Logitech iPad keyboard so I can keep up with my lecturers next year. And it's also the first blog post I've written listening to music through my new Sound Magic headphones, which are wonderful.
High school. I've done it. It's been a psychotic rollercoaster. The most euphoric highs, the most devastating lows. It's been four years of every single thought and feeling and emotion all tumbled together. Year twelve, especially, was the year of firsts.
So I think it is fitting, at the conclusion of my secondary education, to begin again. It's been a year of hurts and I want to move on. I've always been a shy sort of person (believe it or not) and wary of strange company and so I've never had such a fierce desire to reconnect with myself, to do new things, to meet new people, to learn and grow. I want to reach new heights and...I want to fall in love again. I want to love new friends, I want to learn how to love myself again. And I want to fall in the kind of love that Taylor Swift talks about, love that shines golden like starlight, and doesn't fade or spontaneously combust. The relationships I've had, with loves, with friends, with myself, have been red. There has been nothing beige about my life, and for that I am glad. But the relationships that go from zero to a hundred miles an hour and then hit a wall and exploded were awful, ridiculous, desperate, thrilling. And as much as I regret nothing and would do it all again in a heartbeat, I have never lost hope on my ambition to find a state of grace.
This year I have tried to be fearless. I have tried to be brave and to speak my mind. And doing that gave me the guts to do what I never thought I could do before - I realized just how worthy I was, of this state of grace that I dream of, and that it will somehow be worth the wait. Being fearless wasn't not being afraid of anything - truth be told, everything brave and reckless I have done I have been so close to breaking down, terrified, but being fearless meant that I did it all anyway; I did whatever I thought to be right, no matter what. Being fearless was scary and often broke me, but it also helped me to heal. I owe everything to being fearless.
If you are a true friend, I love you dearly. I love you for being with me. I love you for picking me up every time I fell. I love you for helping me to be fearless. And I will always love you, even though I begin again. It's a new leaf and a fresh slate, but you are embedded in my heart.
Begin Again has launched!
I'm back from high school graduation and I'm exhausted. I'm in my flannel sweatpants and my favourite pumpkin orange sweater. My graduation certificate and my Ella Mackay Award for English are next to me on my desk. And I'm deliriously exhausted and happy.
By the way, this is my first post published from my iPad :P. I'm practicing touch typing on my Logitech iPad keyboard so I can keep up with my lecturers next year. And it's also the first blog post I've written listening to music through my new Sound Magic headphones, which are wonderful.
High school. I've done it. It's been a psychotic rollercoaster. The most euphoric highs, the most devastating lows. It's been four years of every single thought and feeling and emotion all tumbled together. Year twelve, especially, was the year of firsts.
So I think it is fitting, at the conclusion of my secondary education, to begin again. It's been a year of hurts and I want to move on. I've always been a shy sort of person (believe it or not) and wary of strange company and so I've never had such a fierce desire to reconnect with myself, to do new things, to meet new people, to learn and grow. I want to reach new heights and...I want to fall in love again. I want to love new friends, I want to learn how to love myself again. And I want to fall in the kind of love that Taylor Swift talks about, love that shines golden like starlight, and doesn't fade or spontaneously combust. The relationships I've had, with loves, with friends, with myself, have been red. There has been nothing beige about my life, and for that I am glad. But the relationships that go from zero to a hundred miles an hour and then hit a wall and exploded were awful, ridiculous, desperate, thrilling. And as much as I regret nothing and would do it all again in a heartbeat, I have never lost hope on my ambition to find a state of grace.
This year I have tried to be fearless. I have tried to be brave and to speak my mind. And doing that gave me the guts to do what I never thought I could do before - I realized just how worthy I was, of this state of grace that I dream of, and that it will somehow be worth the wait. Being fearless wasn't not being afraid of anything - truth be told, everything brave and reckless I have done I have been so close to breaking down, terrified, but being fearless meant that I did it all anyway; I did whatever I thought to be right, no matter what. Being fearless was scary and often broke me, but it also helped me to heal. I owe everything to being fearless.
If you are a true friend, I love you dearly. I love you for being with me. I love you for picking me up every time I fell. I love you for helping me to be fearless. And I will always love you, even though I begin again. It's a new leaf and a fresh slate, but you are embedded in my heart.
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