Lightness

I guess it's not entirely fair that I consistently update my tumblr and neglect this blog for weeks at a time, yeah? Here's a fairly humble apology to everyone that reads this, because you guys amaze and delight me, okay? You're all shining stars and I offer you hugs/handshakes/high fives/cheek kisses/whatever your preference. That sounds mildly sarcastic but it isn't. Pat yourselves on the back.

A list of things that have made my week better:

• @NotTildaSwinton
• This song (and the entire mixtape, actually) and this song, too (though I am not a big fan of the video)
• Visiting Angelica in Orlando for pool times and pasta and car rides and frozen yogurt and long lazy chats
• Registering for Ballet I at the Patel Conservatory with Devin. It's a birthday present from my parents and I am so excited, you have no idea. Several people seem surprised by my "sudden" interest in dance but! This interest is not sudden! I have always loved dance and wanted to learn, but when you're above the age of five you suddenly realize that most beginners classes are for people that age and under and dance classes are kind of expensive and what if you're bad at it and oh, man, a whole cornucopia of things.
• Becca and Chelsea because they are the best
• Exciting potential medical developments
• Good jokes
• My fast-approaching birthday (June 3rd, y'all; save the date)

All good things. Sometimes I make lists inside of my head of pleasant things like that, or just anything at all that's at least a tiny bit interesting. You know what's weird? I often feel like I don't know a lot of concrete facts about myself. Not a lot of things I can just spit out in bulleted list format. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, maybe; I doubt there's any interesting person (not that I'm claiming to be interesting) out there who can describe themselves quickly and easily via bullet points. Still: I'm always a bit in awe of people who know their favorite song and their favorite color and their favorite shirt, who have bucket lists, who know their pet peeves and what they normally dream about. I feel like I only ever know a fact for a brief amount of time. For the past few days I've been especially fixated on collecting a bunch. I keep meaning to make a physical list, since keeping track in my head doesn't actually work, what with my memory not being a steel trap or whatever the proper expression is. I think it's mind, not memory, but memory is what we're focused on here so we're allowing me to make minor changes to popular expressions, 'kay? Getting back on track with the whole list theme: I'm about to hit you with some Fun Facts™ about me, Hope:

• I cannot stand sleeping next to windows at night. I hate walking into my kitchen, even. No. Bad. Terrible. It just freaks me out. I've no idea why. I can sleep in a room with a window; my bedroom has one. I could handle maybe being in a third floor building with a window. I am fond of windows. I just... I always feel like someone's gonna shoot me or be watching and we're gonna leave this alone now because it's 3AM and we all have our irrational fears, right?
• My favorite song is Marching Bands Of Manhattan. I made this claim once and I've stuck to it since. I just really, really love this song, and Death Cab is my favorite band, and I capitalize all of the words in song titles because I'm a lunatic and that's how I like to organize my iTunes. In all caps. In case you were wondering.
• I prefer nausea over a cold, probably. I just really despise being unable to breathe properly.
• Roller coasters give me migraines.
• I really and truly admire virtually every member of my family for some reason or another.
• At one point, I really wanted to be a psychiatrist. There are occasions on which I still think this is a good idea.
• I, like virtually ever other member of a social networking site, worry that I have a very boring sort of internet voice that strikes people as exceedingly unappealing and therefore will never garner any decent amount of attention and will continually disappoint readers everywhere that don't feel bound by familial loyalty.
• I probably am extremely boring and only find myself interesting because I talk to myself on a regular basis and if I didn't think I was the least bit entertaining, I would've cut out my own tongue by now, and word on the street is that's a really unpleasant procedure.

I could go on for days, but I really ought to be getting some shut-eye (I really like that word/phrase (?)), and there are other blog posts to blab about myself in, yeah? Stay hungry and classy and beautiful and all of those other things, folks.

Oh, and here's a few photos to tide you over until I get around to wearing real clothes and going out in actual public again:

The manicure I gave myself today; it took me an actual eternity.

The last outfit I documented in my dorm room. Shirt: Old Navy.

Shorts: Vintage; sandals: American Eagle

Bracelet: Gifted (Thanks, Aunt Christine)

The manicure that I was not so fond of but wore all the way through, anyway (my toes were blue with pink polka dots)

Honey Pie

The thing about people is that we think we can solve our problems based on set formulas prescribed by other people. Which is complete crap, because surprise: we're people and not math books and life is really hard and calculus is hard, too, but at least there are sometimes answers in the back and calculators are programmed to do things like long division for you.

An example: I thought that coming home would solve my problems for me. And alright, no, I wasn't convinced; I had that niggling feeling deep down that I wasn't really escaping anything by changing the scenery. I know better by now than to think that traveling seven hours south is going to erase any lingering doubt or feelings of inadequacy. I can't shed self-consciousness like a skin and bury it in the ground like I occasionally (okay, often) want to.

Another example (and this is a general statement based off a number of observations and not an attack on any individual, because I know people get anxious when you start addressing issues that might be considered relevant to their current situations; kind of like how nearly everyone can see themselves in their horoscopes if they look hard enough): the way, after a break-up, so many people think they can set themselves a recovery date. You're sitting there telling yourself that because you don't want to feel miserable, because you're afraid of feeling miserable, that you just won't. You'll throw yourself into your work, into a bunch of different projects, into spending time with your family or driving your car around until you run out of gas or obsessively cleaning your house or whatever the hell comes your way, and you'll be fine in a month.

Which is total and complete bull.

The thing about people is that they have all of these pesky emotions and neuroses and they're messy and unorganized. The thing about people is that they watch a lot of television and read a lot of books and see a lot of advertisements and well-thought-out arguments and they think, "Jesus, I am not together! I am not the same as Character A!" and then they try to shave off all of the bits that won't fit into that mould. And sometimes you just want to stop and scream, "NO!"

All sorts of things develop from people trying to model their lives after these unattainable images of SUPPOSED-TO-BEs. All sorts of really hideously awful things. Eating disorders, suicides, broken windows and ripped up books and burned photographs and really, really awful haircuts. And so far wading through the ocean of societal pressures and THE AMERICAN DREAM!! and wants and wishes that other people have for me in conjunction with the anxieties and issues of the people closest to me has been really bizarre and complicated, and sometimes I just want to sit in my backyard on the trampoline and drink iced coffee or stay up until 5AM talking to my mother, or fold other people's socks while watching Luther, or ride Montu six times in a row until my migraine is so bad that I feel like I'm going to throw up.

So, even though people still sleep with people they shouldn't and throw up their meals when they really need the nutrition and burn themselves on purpose and wear pants that give them serious muffin tops, and even though going home hasn't rid me of my preoccupation with the Fear That I Am Going to Fail at Living Life and Therefore Should Not Risk Trying Anything New blah blah blah mentality that I seem to have developed in the absence of my mom's steamed broccoli (why is she the only person on earth who can cook good broccoli every time?), I feel really pleased with the idea that I can now do those things.

The thing about people, I guess, is that even though we run ourselves into the ground trying to accomplish the impossible, we sometimes get it right, and sometimes it's all just really beautiful.