prose: april, 2014

They say when you stop looking is when things tend to find you. Well I don't think I've ever started looking so shouldn't it have been found all along?

Why is it that I constantly feel so unwell, so misput, like when you try to make two pieces of a puzzle almost fit but not quite but you just want to get the damn puzzle finished so you make them fit together, and as a result the puzzles distorted but you're tired and don't care anymore so you go to bed and leave it as is. That's how I feel constantly. Left as is. Not tied together in a bow, but good enough to go to sleep without looking back.

And then sometimes I feel as though I am being run over by a truck. Like I am still that as is puzzle on your coffee table, but now there is a small child or someone playing trucks driving over the pieces. The as is pieces. Crushing. Cramming. Bursting. Pushing the pieces that don't fit together even closer to one another. Pushing the pieces that are right farther away from one another. The gap widens, the void deepens. Like the wheels of the toy truck are talking to me. "Why haven't you found it yet? Why won't it find you? It doesn't want to find you. You're not meant to be found." But what are we if we're not found? Can we find ourselves? I would like to think so but I'm not quite sure.

The truck knocks a corner piece off the table on to the floor, it stays there.

My Five Favorite Cry-Along Songs

Okay…everybody cries. Some more frequently than others. Me more frequently than most. But that’s okay. What follows is a list I compiled of five of my favorite songs that I love to blast when I am sad and need a good cry, or when the tears are already coming and I need the song to say the words that the tears speak. Tears don’t always mean the same thing, and these songs show that beautifully I think. I have affectionately titled these songs as being “cry-along songs.”

So even if you’re not much of a crier…give these songs a listen. They are guaranteed to pull – or at least peck – at your heart. 

1.     Foundations by Kate Nash

 The “I hate you and I feel empowered so I am going to scream sing this song in my car with the windows down and might tear up a little” cry-along song

"you said I must eat so many lemons,

cos I am so bitter,

I said I'd rather be with your friends mate,

cos they are much fitter"

The most light-hearted cry-along up first. Kate Nash is a talent who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and is a very strong and independent woman. The song shows that with it’s lyrics. Boy pisses girl off, girl deserves better, girl should dump boy, but girl can’t because girl loves boy. Never has such frustration been so fun to sing along to. This song is a MUST HAVE for your car. Screaming the lyrics in my best British accent while banging the steering will and occasionally tearing up is therapeutic  - and the sessions are free!

2.  Come Pick Me Up by Ryan Adams

The “I currently hate everyone I have ever met but it’s okay as long as you’re still there to make it worse by making it better” cry-along song

"when you're walking downtown,

do you wish I was there? do you wish it was me?

with the windows clear and the mannequin's eyes,

do they all look like mine?"

This song. THIS SONG. I have loved this song for years but it’s one of those songs that you forget about for a little while only to suddenly remember it when you’re in the middle of doing some mundane task like writing an essay or making a sandwich and you need to listen to it. And you hear it and it’s like hearing it for the first time and the lyrics, and the HARMONICA. The harmonica alone in this song is enough to bring me to tears. Add the lyrics and I’m done for. This is my mad cry-to song. My song for when I hate the world and nothing feels right and basically I hate you so much but I don't and everything hurts. Everything's heavy.  

3. Candles by Daughter

The “I am fragile and I gave you a change and you broke me like a twig” cry-along song

"so please just blow out all the candles blow out all the candles,

'you're too old to be so shy' he says to me so I stay the night"

This is my newest cry-along song. I saw the amazingly talented Daughter live in September, and when they performed this song I had goosebumps. The song hit me like a ton of bricks. The softness and innocent sound of the song with the heart-wrenching lyrics really does a number on me.  Basically this is the one you want listen to when you feel so fragile. When you feel like you’re a vase on the kitchen table that the dog just ran into and you come falling down onto the hard and unforgiving floor – shattering into a thousand pieces. This song is that first impact of glass on the tile. 

4. Halleluiah by Jeff Buckley

The “all around sad but sadness is beauty” cry-along song

"I used to live alone before I knew you,

and I've seen your flag on the marble arch

and love is not a victory march

it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

This song ugh this song is the ultimate general cry-to song, I think, not my own personal cry-to song.  No one will ever do to this song what Jeff Buckley has done to this song. His voice and these lyrics just turn on my tears as if it is water coming from a faucet. It’s such a classic and always hit’s the nail on the head. It’s the song when you’re sad and you don’t know why. It’s the song when you’re sad and you do know why. It’s the song that understands whatever reason why you are sad and will wrap you in a blanket of a chords and notes and words and a touch of magic.

5.     Woods by Bon Iver

The “my heart is broken” cry-along song

"I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind,

I'm building a sill, to slow down the time" 

This is my own personal cry-to song, so of course this had to be on the list. We all have our own personal cry-to songs I think, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite but no song will slay me like this one does. In 2008, I remember writing a piece of prose about how once while listened to this song on repeat I actually felt by heart being torn into two pieces. I felt it debating from itself and from going from a whole to halves. The song was the soundtrack to my literal adolescent heartbreak, and for that it will always be an automatic tearjerker. Four lines worth of lyrics have never said so much nor meant so much to me.

…And that’s my list! I decided to add them to a playlist on Spotify if you’re interested on listening to them there, and I also provided YouTube links for them as well! Here is the Spotify playlist link: http://open.spotify.com/user/1247521026/playlist/2Qh1Jpdq6U0Ovcgpi6a4hj

Trust me…I have many more cry-to songs so if you enjoyed this at all please let me know, I’d love to do songs 6-10 and kindof make this an ongoing thing.

I really hope you enjoy these songs. I hope you haven’t heard of them and like them or you have heard of them and are reminded of why you love them. I hope they shine a light through the dark days like they do for me, as cheeseball as that sounds. These songs get it, and that is beautiful.

prose, 10/28/13

The sense of smell. People say it's linked strongest to memories. I think some of the people who have said this have been scientists or researchers so it must be true. I know it to be true. Never have I experienced time travel until I experienced it when smelling that smell on that person who walked into that store. That random stranger. And then I wasn't grocery shopping anymore. I wasn't there at all anymore. I was three years in the past. An ache in my heart and a disease tainting my thoughts. I wasn't 21 and fixed anymore, I was 18 and broken. I curled up on my bed and let the sad music play and closed my eyes. And then I moved. I took a step forward and wasn't in my bed anymore, I was back in the grocery store. Smell is such a funny thing.

Sometimes I wanna bottle scents. Those smells. The smells that break your heart. The smells that put you together. The fragrances that takes the fragments in you and makes them whole. I want to bottle them. And sometimes I want to scrub myself with them. Sometimes I want to use it like it's soap. Sometimes I want to scrub and scrub and scrub. Pushing down with my right hand and rubbing the scent into my left arm, with a loofa or washcloth or anything.  I want to felt it go past my skin and through my bloodstream. Into my veins. I want my arm to turn red. Like I want to push it past the surface and into the part of me that matters. I want the scent pumping through me instead of whatever normally does it. I think I would live better that way. Sometimes, I mean.

Other times  I seem to have the opposite urge. Sometimes I feel like the smell is already inside me. Waiting patiently to be smelt. And then I smell it. I smell it when the stranger walks by at the grocery store. I smell it when I get too close to forgetting what it smells like. I smell it and I feel something rush up from my toes and right to the middle of my heart. It's not always pleasant, this feeling. Sometimes I think my heart burts. Because this scent has something on me. It know me too well. It's been there, at 3am when I can't fall asleep. It's like this scent wants to be my undoing, wants to cause my reckoning. Because it reminds me of a time that's gone. A time that never was. A what that will never be. These times, I don't want to scrub. I want to pull. I want to rip off the surface and yank the scent from inside of me. I want to throw it away in a trash bin and light it on fire. I never want to smell that smell again...

but it is such a sweet smell.

So I put out the fire, bottle the scent, and scrub until it's inside again.

My best friend's birthday!

This past Monday was my best friend's birthday! Sarah and I tend to go overboard for each other on our birthday's and Christmas and this year was definitely no exception! I found some beauties on sale and also did some DIY's and wanted to share with everyone the great haul I got for a great friend!


Finds:

Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 by Elizabeth Winder

Not only is this is a biography of our favorite person: Sylvia Plath, but it is a biography that focuses solely on the month of Plath's life that inspired The Bell Jar. I found this browsing the internet months ago and just knew I had to get it for her!

I has no intention of getting these, but I walked by Charlotte Russe and saw the amazing sale they had and just could not resist! 

I love these because they combine one of my favorite things (the color black) and one of Sarah's (crop tops)!

Black Harem Pants, H&M (under $20)

I picked up a pair of these for myself and have literally been living in them since. They are so comfortable, flattering on all body types, and acceptable for almost any kind of social situation really. They are more comfortable than sweats, and much more fashionable. I knew I had to give Sarah these beauties!

Gotta accessorize! I don't think I have ever not gotten Sarah accessories. It's just a staple. It's so easy, fun, and probably my favorite thing to shop for for her! I also liked picking these out because I think they will compliment the black crop tops well!

Now to the DIY's:

DIY #1: Painted Moleskins

Sarah decorated journals for my for my birthday and I absolutely love them! I loved the idea, and knew I wanted to do something similar this year for her birthday. The idea struck me when I was browsing Barnes & Noble and found a treasure I didn't know existed: white moleskins!! I nearly fainted when I saw these beauties and bought a pack of two on the immediate.

Materials for DIY:

• Moleskins (Barnes & Noble)
• Paints (AC Moore)
• Modge Podge (AC Moore)
• Brushes (AC Moore)

I bought some paints, used brushes and Modge Podge I already had at home and BAM! DIY painted moleskins!

DIY #2: Homemade Midi Ring

Materials:

• Thin copper wire (AC Moore)
• Wire cutters

This DIY was so easy and I love the result! All I did was twist some copper wire around my finger and used some wire cutters to cut the wire. You could get more fancy and use pliers, but I guess I just got lucky! Tip: be sure to be careful where to bend your cut wire- you don't want to cut yourself!

...And that's that! Some great gifts for the greatest person I know!

Happy Birthday to you Sarie!  Thanks for being my best friend (I really don't know how you do it). Love you to the moon and back. Xo.

Three questions I've been asking myself all day & will make me go crazy.

1. Will people ever start caring about me as much as I care about them?

Alright, this is the most self-absorbed question on the list so let's get this one out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible. It's just simple. I feel like I care too much. I have always cared too much. Put too much pressure on myself to make sure everyone else around me is happy, no matter what it means I may have to sacrifice for myself. And that's just how I am, that's how I am made up I guess. I don't really like talking about myself that much. Most people usually don't know what I'm really thinking in my crazy little brain (although many people assume they do, given my tendency to over-talk). Just because I talk a lot does not mean you know me. But that's a different conversation for a different day. Today's topic is much more straightforward: when will I stop doing what other people want me to do and start doing what I want to do? I feel submissive. I feel so out of control of my feelings and my actions so much that it kind of makes me physically sick.

Usually I'd cure this by shutting out the rest of the world for a good 48 hours. Binge watch a show on Netflix. Read a few good books. But I'm not sure if I want to do that anymore. Do I want to just put a band aid on a cut that needs stitches? I don't think I want to anymore.

How to solve this question...I have no idea. Maybe I put my foot down. But will I? For I am terribly terrified of rejection, of disapproval. So much so one could probably say it's pathetic. But it's me.

So there's that. That's the big one. That one's the killer, the one that keeps you up at night and sometimes you find yourself kind of crying just sitting there not knowing why because you just feel like there's some kind of void in your heart. Like something died. A flower that died and won't grow back no matter how much you tend to it. That is the definition of unrequited - the word that will always haunt me. Unrequited is the face of my demons when my eyes are begging for sleep but my mind is begging for clarity.

2. What am I doing with my life?

Phew. This one I am much more comfortable talking about. And I think it's because at least I know I'm not alone in this. I think this is perfectly normal post grad thinking. Hell, there's websites about post grad problems now, and that movie starring Alexis Bledel remember? Yeah, definitely not alone in this one.

Anyone who is 22 years old and just graduated college and says they know what they're doing is lying. Let me tell you that right now. And if you're reading this and you think you're one of those people...I'm sorry, you're not. They don't exist, and they're not supposed to. You either admit you have no clue what you're doing or you paint a facade that you've got it all together for the world to see and secretly sob into Ben & Jerry's three nights a week. So just admit it, you'll save yourself a lot of money (and calories).

We're not supposed to know what we're doing. We're supposed to be figuring it out. We're supposed to be taking risks, doing things now because it truly is our last chance to be that selfish and put ourselves first. We will have time for everything else later. But right now it is totally acceptable to shout about your directionless life from the rooftops. To drink on a Sunday. To work 3 different jobs. To take a trip. To find yourself. We will figure it out, we just don't have it figured out yet.

This question I can usually come to terms with in my mind. But that doesn't mean it doesn't terrify me at the same time.

3. What am I doing here?

The world is big and I have only seen so little. This disgusts me. I feel as though I will never learn how to be a true adult and functioning member of society unless I fix this. Unless I go somewhere new. Unless I make roots somewhere else. Unless I do something.

But for at least a little while longer it seems I am to stay here. And that just makes me a bit stir crazy.



This doesn't really make sense and wasn't as nearly as therapeutic as I hoped it would be. I feel like recently my heart has been feeling like how it feels just before you wake up from a dream that you're falling. Your heart senses it first and you can kind of feel your heart dropping into your feet. You know? It's a really uncomfortable feeling to live with and I would really just like to open my eyes now, take a few deep breathes, roll over and be able to go back to sleep.

Moral of the story: I think too much, don't think I have ever been more confused or more miserable, and feel trapped both by geography and by my own skin. I think I just want to scream but am almost sure that if I did, I would not make a sound.

I am a Harry Potter fan and I am very hesitant about the Fantastic Beasts movie.

There. I said it.

When I found out that Warner Bros and JK Rowling were teaming up once more to bring her textbook like "Fantastic Beats and Where To Find Them" book to life on the big screen, I didn't scream with joy. I didn't even jump up and down. Hell, I didn't even smile really.

What does that mean? How can someone as obsessed and in love with the beautiful world JK Rowling created as I am not be excited about this? Have I gone crazy? Am I "over" it all?

Well, I'm definitely not over it and I'm not crazy, well not any crazier than usual. I think my lack of excited anticipation for this project stems from my fear of too much of a good thing. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing, to put it redundantly. And I guess I am nervous that this will be too much. I'm nervous it will flop. I'm nervous it won't be anything. I guess I'm nervous as to how it will or will not make me feel. Pretty silly, right?

Let's get emotional for a second. The Harry Potter series has done for me what nothing else has. I am like the many others who grew up with it, who wrapped our arms around it when we were scared. Who immersed our eyes in the words on the pages and let it transport us to Hogwarts when our would didn't make sense anymore, when it wasn't someplace we wanted to be. Who sobbed like small children at the mall who couldn't find their mother when Dobby died because nothing made sense. Who read those last three words "all was well" and sighed a beautiful yet heartbreaking sigh because it was over. The storytelling was over, but the story will never be over, and that's the beauty of it. It began, it happened, it ended, and we will always have it when it's 3am and we are scared of the dark.

I remember the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows Part 2. Decked out in my Gryffindor uniform, Hermione Granger. Sitting in the theatre. Holding my cousin's hand and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. Refusing to get up when the credits stopped rolling. Crying. Crying with a theatre full of people. Crying because we had a lost a piece of ourselves that we could never get back. Crying because our childhood had ended, and we were left defenseless against the cold of the real world. And it was magificent and we were all there together and had one another and we all understood without understanding at all. And that was magic. And that will always be magic. The storytelling has ended but the story lives within us, the story lives in the books, in the films. It could not have been a better goodbye, a goodbye that wasn't a goodbye at all.

And that was beautiful. Because the chapter of our lives ended but the story was still there. But I think it was very important that that door closed. Very important that our childhoods ended, very important that the storytelling was done being told. It gave us the closure we needed while at the same time wrapped us in a blanket of security by knowing we could always go back.

I worry that Fantastic Beats will poke at this too much. I worry that it will try to rip back open the door that was so elegantly closed. I worry the shape that it will leave us in. Unfulfilled, let down, craving more, addicted. I worry that it will meddle with the beauty of our memories. I worry it will poke the vase at the end of the table just enough for it to wobble a few times before falling, shattering on the floor into a million little pieces.

What does this say about me? Analyzing so much about a movie that doesn't even have a storyline yet?

It makes me a Harry Potter fan. One who doesn't want the magic to be tainted.

And let's just be clear: I still plan on attending this at midnight. I still plan on giving it a chance. I hope I'm wrong. And I have all the faith and admiration in the world for JK Rowling. There was just a humming in me that wouldn't be silenced until I wrote it down.

Why I Think Social Media May Be Ruining All Of Our Friendships

Think about it. We're constantly connected, constantly turned on. If you're like me, part of your daily morning routine includes checking the usual social media websites: facebook, twitter, instagram, vine, snapchat, etc. We are constantly using social media to shove our nose into other people's buisness. And we let it be done right back to us, by uploading pictures and checking in somewhere anytime we leave the house, or tweeting witty quotes and dramatic lyrics. With social media, we can instantly tell what many of our close friends are doing, whom they're doing it with, and how they feel about it.

That's great…isn't it? It's great that we can see photos from vacations, or hear about how much fun you had at that concert last night. We can be up to speed on everything, like we never missed a beat. We can share our experiences with our friends and in return our friends share them. But do we really need to share everything?

Here is my attempt to rationalize this abstract concept of plastering our personal lives all over for the world to see. It might not seem abstract, but think about it for a few minutes and you’ll probably get really lost in your mind about what it all means and what it says about our generation and how soon no one will know how to have a face to face interaction. At least, that’s what happened to me. So maybe I’m just crazy and this isn’t such an abstract concept to anyone else.

Regardless, I tried to sum up how social media is ruining our friendships by giving you three main reasons. And here they are:

1) We Don't Catch Up Anymore

Simply because there is nothing to catch up on. If we constantly know what everyone around us is doing, what are we supposed to talk about when we get together? I find myself guilty of this too often. I am out to lunch or just hanging out with a friend and they start to tell a story of something they've done since we last saw one another and I interject "oh yeah I saw the picture! I didn't know Joe was going with you to that. Your new shirt looked great, by the way." How can we catch up one each others lives if there's nothing really to catch up on?

2) Hanging Out Turns Into Sitting In A Room With Someone Staring At Your Respective Phones

As previously mentioned, I am just as guilty of doing this as anyone else, it is just something that's really been nagging at me recently. I cannot get it out of my head. So much time spent with friends is becoming sitting in silence while we are on our respective technological device, tweeting about being with each other, or editing a picture of being together, but we're not really spending quality time together in doing this. Because we haven't missed anything, have we? (This takes me right back to reason #1). Not if we've been checking social media, or even just texting and iMessaging daily. That's the problem I think. That's as far as I can pin point it. Social media is damaging our friendships because it is allowing us to be with them in some form of the word almost 24/7. If we can be with them so much, how can we miss them? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? No absence means I know everything there is to know about what you've been up to and so while we're at lunch I'm going to check my news feed and see what other people are doing. 

3) Sometimes, we just need to be unreachable.

Not so long ago, people used to go out without cell phones or computers. They'd go out all of the time without them. And they'd survive. They'd do what they needed to do and come home. They would go days without talking to some of their best friends. Because they weren't always reachable. They weren't always connected, always turned on. I have this giant pit in my stomach and it's the unwavering fear that we are missing out on our lives because we're too busy posting about it on the internet. We don't know how to talk face to face anymore, or we don't do it nearly as often as we should. 

Going off of this, I think reasons 1-3 happen because we don't have an attention span anymore, at least not really. Holding eye contact with someone for a five minute conversation at the bank seems invasive and uncomfortable. We can't pay attention to anyone for longer than a few minutes, and that's because we're used to the constantly updating constantly changing world of the internet. We'd rather sit on our phones like have a face-to-face conversation with someone for a few hours makes us fidget and feel trapped.

Here's my suggestion: the next time you're with a friend…maybe you should accidently leave your phone at home. Or in the car. And see what happens.

…But then again, what do I know? Because part of me thinks I’m adding to the problem by posting this.