Dealing With Things Is Hard

I'm leaving campus, and the island, far behind me on Tuesday, at least for a few weeks. That includes dealing with schoolwork, thinking about next semester, and my interminable crush. All those things will be out of sight, and therefore hopefully out of mind. But until then, I'm still stuck here for a bit.

And, of course, leaving behind one side of my reality doesn't mean that the world stops being real. Once I'm back at "home", I have to look into what options I have open to me next year, in case I don't want to stay here, which is certainly a possibility. I mean, I love most things about being here, but between my pathetic infatuation, anxiety about what I'm doing with my future, and not even knowing if I'll be able to study acting specifically, my running instinct is in high gear. I came here to run away from my past, from High School and from a city I didn't want to live in. Right now I'm feeling the urge to run away again, but I have no idea what to, and I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's just Cabin Fever. I haven't left the city for a month, and mostly I'm stuck on campus. I'm very ready to get away and spend some time with my closest friends. Maybe when I come back in January, I'll feel better. I'll have to, because I'll be having rehearsals on the weekends so it's looking bad for taking any weekends off all spring. So I'll either have to find some other way to fight the claustrophobia, or become suddenly a lot more contented with my everyday life. Or maybe my second semester will be easier than my first because I'll have had time to get used to things?

One thing I can hold on to is that my best friend Kendra are intending to actually do music things. If it wasn't so unrealistic and difficult, I would drop everything, we would make music together and go on the road to play it for people. But for now, I have to finish at least this second semester, and then we'll be devoting the summer to songwriting and music making. Who knows how that will turn out, but at the very least it'll be fun.

Really I just want to be cool and hip and work as an actor and make music on the side and make videos and have enough money to actually have a nice wardrobe. And travel lots.

So, you know, I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

This post is brought to you by Mystery Jets (not really), because this song is so lovely, because it's from my all-time favourite Songza playlist, and because I want Laura Marling's super cool voice.

More comprehensive, life-update-y post coming soon. Apologies to the zero people who read this blog for my extended absence.

The Power of Now

I'm starting to really appreciate real life.

It's incredibly refreshing to think of the fact that I can do pretty much anything I want to do. FOr instance, there's a post on tumblr that says something along the lines of "I just want to walk across a field in slow-motion to the pentatonix remix of Imagine Dragons' Radioactive". And it's amazing to think that I can grab my best friend and a camera, and we can find a field and do that. (Tee, it's totally happening.)

I can do all the weird stuff they do in movies. I can get hella wasted at some party in university and suffer the consequences with a wicked hangover the next morning, wondering if my stupidity was worth it.

I can come up with an idea and write a novel, even if it never gets published. I could team up with somebody and write a webcomic or even a comic book.

I could learn to sew. I could cosplay a million things and recreate movie scenes in silly little videos. (This is honestly half the reason I started my YouTube channel.)

I could pack everything up and go see the world on a whim. I could move back home and learn a profession. I could move to a different country where I barely know the language and struggle to communicate let alone make a living.

Life is real, man.

And that's amazing.

Real Talk

It's all getting very real around here.

I've graduated high school. I got two awards worth $500 each and I got my bilingual diploma (French immersion, bro). I had my Grad, with fancy gowns and a limo and too much champagne on an empty stomach. We barrelled through the awkward "this is so cliché" phase, threw aloof hipsterness to the wind and danced our hearts out until we couldn't breathe. It was beautiful, and it was the last time I saw most people in my grad class, and the last time all my friends and I were together. Ever. That's the scary part.

I'm just very used to all of us being in the same place all the time. And there's that safety net of "we'll all be back for holidays" to save you from having to address the fact that you're no longer going to see the people closest to you on a daily basis any more. Which is especially hard because we established a lunchtime routine this past year. It was mostly unspoken and that's what our group friendship was based on and relied on.

But I was the link between two groups of people. I was the reason they didn't avoid each other, the reason my two best friends talked to and were friendly with my other best friend. The reason we all hung out together sometimes. And Grad was the last time that happened. In history.

The very tangible realness of it all is what's hitting me these days; It's paralysing me. Besides my jobs, I'm getting nothing done, I can't plan things properly, and I'm avoiding any actual planning for the fall that needs doing. I'm not even sure what it is that's scaring me so much, I just know it's so very, very absolute, that fear.

And so, I sit around on my brand new computer, playing video games and being generally unsatisfied. (With video games, not my new computer. "Rory" is perfect.)

One thing I have finally accomplished, though, is filming my first vlog. I find myself still putting off posting it. Right now it's the fact that I imply something about somebody dying, and the last thing I want is for people to think I'm talking about Cory Monteith. Heaven knows I feel sorry about it and for Lea Michele, but it didn't impact me personally. But I'm thinking tomorrow I'll upload it. And then I can start promoting it and get it out there and start the tumblr. I'm really excited for that (if you like the music recommendations/features I do on this blog, follow the tumblr cause there'll be loads of those, promise).

So, how to get through paralysis?

I guess the only thing there is to do is take it one day at a time. Start with the small stuff, easy things.

So, tomorrow, what I'll aim to do is:
- Make the header for the Fueled by Young Spirit channel and the twitter
- Upload the video
- Put on the slowcooker for dinner
- Start to go shopping for rain boots, an umbrella and pajamas (Target is opening tomorrow, so that should help). I hope Tee is free so I don't have to face it alone. I hate shopping when I need to do it, and love it when I can't afford it.
- Work out

There. It's in writing. Maybe that means I'll do it all.

Also I really need a new blog layout.


We Are The City's new album Violent is excellent. This is my favourite track, because of the fullness of the sound and it goes along with my preoccupation over "losing" my friends. The band members actually come from the place I live right now. Represent!

this post's illustrations are by this photo-magician lady. I really hope she doesn't mind me using them.