Summer: The Early Stages

The above picture is from my sister's wedding. Yes, this is the wedding I had been dreading since winter...yes, I did survive...Okay, it wasn't as horrible as I made it out to be in my head. I suppose the whole thing stems from experiences with my sister during times of stress, and experiences with weddings. No, I haven't been in a wedding before this, but I had been to so FREAKING many of them. The actual wedding isn't what bothers me, it is the reception. Everyone is dancing around having a grand time when they decide to play a slow song that makes all of the single people in the room feel like shit... Sure, this isn't the intent, but that's how I feel about the whole thing. Luckily I had some people to goof off with and my friend texted me to check up on how I was feeling. And that really helped me.

Another thing I have been doing this summer is pretending to be five. My cousin, Rick, and I had decided that life had been far too stressful this year and the only way to fix that was to go back to a time when we were blissfully unaware of drama. And let me tell you, eating popsicles and playing four square are good ways to avoid drama. I was over there today and we played Legos for a very long time. It was really epic. I also got a skateboard on Sunday and I am very anxious about continuing to learn how to ride it. :)

One last thing before I go, this summer I am reading memoirs. The one I am currently reading is called "The Possibility of Everything" by Hope Edelman. It is about a writer who is struggling to find something to believe in during her young daughter's illness. It is really good so far and I look forward to reading the rest of it. I have not read many memoirs in my life, so I'm hoping to get a few good ones in this summer. Who knows, I might even write a memoir someday. ;)

Emotion

I was going through some of my old Tumblr posts today. If you don't know what Tumblr is, it is sort of like a blog, but you can post just random pictures, videos, quotes, songs, .gifs, and any type of writing you want. I had a lot of writing on their the week after Nick and I broke up which really speaks to me right now.

Just so we are all clear, I am completely and totally over that douche. I don't even get anxiety when passing him anymore. This being said, he got a new haircut which makes it visually obvious that he is a douche-bag, my friend says it's because you can see his eyes. I agree.

Anyways, while I was reading some of my scathing remarks to him, I spotted a line that I absolutely loved. I had told him something about how he had strung me along for the weekend because he wanted to try and feel something. I didn’t realize it was ok to totally disregard how the other person would feel about something just because you wanted to see if you could feel anything.

The whole idea of feeling is something I change my mind about almost every single day. Sometimes I'd prefer to know that I can feel, even through pain, than be closed off to the thought and hope of something good. But other days I think about how nice it might be to feel nothing, to go through life on a breeze and have nothing stick ever.

But those are the days I have to remember that if I felt nothing, I wouldn't feel enjoyment, I wouldn't feel pleasure, I wouldn't be able to reflect on good weekends like the one I just had, with a giant grin. And that is why I choose feeling.

It might seem out of the blue to talk about feeling right now, but it really isn't. Not to me on my last week of classes. I have all of these new friends now, people I'm just starting to get to know on a deeper level, and soon I will be hours away from them. It is going to be so hard not to text some of my friends about doing things because they aren't right there anymore. But on the other hand it will be summer. I will be going back to my house and seeing all of the people I left behind nine months ago. I will get to see how much they've changed, and they will get to see how much I've changed and we'll have to discern whether or not we can live with these almost new people in our lives. Because as much as I don't see it sometimes, I have changed a whole lot during my first year of undergrad. I am no longer quite as quiet, I have new ideas and opinions on different things, I've experienced joy and heartbreak...I have become a Coming of Age Novel...

It is hard for me to write this and feel as though I'm not being too cynical, too sappy, too depressing, but I guess that's what this post is all about: emotion, feeling something. I have learned that I want to feel, that being numb is not something to be revered, but to be pitied, for those who cannot feel pain cannot feel joy. And when I feel pain or sorrow I also remember that I have felt joy, and there will be more joy to come.