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.