Times have changed and so has my hairstyle (that’s a
metaphor for something more intellectual).
There were things that I experienced in 2015 that last year’s English accent
would have exclaimed “Excuse meh, WAHT?!” to.
This was a
monumental year for me. It was one of
those years where I would erratically reflect on my whole life in the middle of
Ad class or while walking (crawling) home from the bar. A brief summary of this thought train:
I spent over 18
years living in the same log home with the same neighbors in the same
small-town school district. In that
timespan, I had approximately twenty different pets ranging from hermit crabs
to a crabby horse, and approximately two close friends. I watched the pine tree I planted with my
father at the age of three grow well past the height of my house. I witnessed the birth and death of the garden
my mother attempted to help me grow at the age of five. Unlike many parents in the modern age, mine
never separated, so I didn’t experience much (if any) adversity as a child
(unless you consider living in a home without Internet and video games
adversity). I remained the only child no matter how much I begged for a little sister.
Three months before
my 19th birthday, I moved into my first “home away from home”: an
airless dorm with a window spanning the width of my room, overlooking my
tower’s parking lot. Prior to that
tormenting hot August day, I never shared a house with someone within my age
vicinity, let alone a room. My childhood
bedroom was quiet and private, attached to a house hidden from our road behind
forest. The night after I moved into my
new home at college, I followed a parade of girls to beer pong and red solo
cups while I was dressed in the same clothes I’d worn to church the previous
Sunday.
About eighteen months later, I spent the night hurling into
the toilet after a 14-hour flight to the southeastern hemisphere. People drove on the “wrong” side of the
road. I was a living few hours driving
distance from the foothills of the Southern Alps. I spent more than my fair share of nights
sleeping on the frigid ground in my Northface jacket and hiking boots, without
a blanket that wasn’t made of stars and/or snow. Living in New Zealand was the most homeless
I’d ever been. Living in New Zealand was
the most at home I’d ever felt.
This past summer I moved into a 4-bedroom house in the midst
of my college town, where drunken students often belted over my laptop playing
Leslie Knope’s flawless voice. After a long shift of canvassing while I worked
for NYPIRG, I’d go back to this house enclosing my cozy warm bed and running
hot water. Despite this, I spent more nights void of sleep than I knew my body
was capable of, incited by painful, overwhelming feelings of nostalgia after
leaving New Zealand. I felt like an alien in a town I’d previously spent almost
two years living in, brimming with an abundance of friends, recent memories,
and favorite coffee joints.
And when looking back on this (mind you I skipped 90% of the
details), this was the year I finally sort of figured myself out. I wouldn’t even call it some sort of self-discovery
that I endeavored by choice. I was more
so just getting sucked into that thing called life.
This is a stretch but I’m going to take a moment to not talk
about myself, but about this crazy year in general.
Well 2015 has been real… dare I say almost too real. There’s D Trump trying to break into by what
his standards would be referred to as The White Shack (maybe every minority
group he’s ever offended aka all of them will exile him first but who knows). The
Pope threw up a deuce and charted some less holy waters between the US and Cuba
(even though we still can’t buy our uncles Cubans for Christmas but I guess
that’s what the Sears tools section is for)… and he also may have every hipster
atheist in Brooklyn re-evaluating his or her view of Catholicism. Civil rights cases have incited significant
dialogue, while the feud between Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter has
also become more apparent (and for the record we’re not talking about Bic pens). Oh and don’t let me forget… THE FORCE AWAKENS
(or something. Is that the quote?). Also I know nothing about this because my
parents left me culturally illiterate by solely raising me on Seinfeld reruns.
Given that life is like… let’s see... a cascading waterfall
of shit with the occasional maniac who survives its undercurrent (s/o MarkZuckerburg)
2016 will also likely be more than a mouthful.
Will JB and Selena rekindle their love? Will Google release the Google Foamboard?
Will Antarctica hit 80F? Will Chris Christie be photographed
at the gym?
The world may never know.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is to stay in our lane and worry
about ourselves.
There were cool things I did during my final weeks of 2015; like
volunteer in elementary school classrooms for self-validation instead of swipe
on Tinder (17 years later and the popular girls finally invited me to play
House with them!). I stuffed raw squid
with what smelled like sawdust and found all the living Jon Stewarts on the US
Census Bureau (!!!). And then I had a Wtf are you even doing moment and
decided to write this post. Even though
I’m confident that my answers to What did
you do this week, Emily? will mindf*ck you all, I’m more confident that a
game of What did you do this year, Emily?
will leave you all, my Golden Globe-size and ever-loyal reading audience, in
greater dubiousness of my sanity.
I love lists. I
always have. Look at my first blog post
or my laptop notes and even at the crumpled notebook paper in my underwear
drawer (actually don’t. that’s weird. stop
thinking about it). So obviously I’ll be
presenting my best moments/insights of 2015 in a carefully articulated and
thoughtfully organized list format.
Shall we?
1. (since it’s probably the most important) I
turned 21. And then I wrote myself a note in commemoration of this milestone before
I got drunk for 48 hours straight. If
you’re at all intrigued… well, here:
Dear Em,
You’re curious and fearless and also naïve. Maybe start to hink for five seconds before you blurt your mind; maybe step back every now and then so
you’re not always pissing people off (you have a lot to learn so stop
talking like you’re Oprah). Get hammered
and be sloppy this weekend because these are some of the few years in your life
where this will be seen as socially acceptable (I mean Oprah would never have
just said that in a public space). Also
eat breakfast before Cortaca. Also don’t
call your mother if you get arrested. Also
don’t let anyone convince you to snort a line of “salt”.
*Then some friends arrived and then more friends arrived and
from there the letter went to shit*
If you’re unaware of how depressed I was
this past summer through fall, it’s because I didn’t really talk about it. I’m kind of bad at talking about serious
stuff because (in case you haven’t noticed already) I’m not a very serious
person. And I felt extraordinarily
selfish to dwell on the past in the way I did, knowing that I essentially have
the world at my feet and that I’m not working in a sweatshop in a third world
country. The depression was embarrassing
for me; I was so lucky to have even embarked on the journey I did and here I
was wallowing in self-pity.
“Fake
it till ya make it” is sort of my guiding principle (since I don’t particularly
identify with Confucian philosophies) and I did just that. I tried my best to
live actively and fully so there was no free time to let the “abroad hole” get
the best of me. I got a few jobs to quench my terribly parched bank account. I can
say I killed it in what was my hardest semester ever. And now I’m rebuilding my portfolio and
resume with high hopes to intern in New York or Boston this summer. Also I started running a lot (maybe this is
an identity crisis I don’t know I haven’t really figured it out yet).
3. I met some really great people. People who changed my life. Beyonce, Amy Schumer, Leslie Knope; all friends who I text on the reg and who follow me on Instagram. (Pictured
below)
Yea. These aren’t actually the celebrities/fictional
characters I mentioned preceding this picture.
But these women are fierce as hell and are better than any celebrity
you’ll every catching a fleeting glimpse of outside The Plaza Hotel. And they have changed my life in the best way
possible.
4. I had a credit card close on me for delinquency
for the first time! Although I will argue this was not due to
my inability to pay for charges, but rather to my inability to understand how
to pay for those charges. Whatever. I feel scandalous and adult and no one can
take this away from me because I have a letter to prove it.
5. I started to act as smart as I am. Maybe smarter than I am (??).
For you people who spend a significant
amount of time with me, I don’t think it’s any secret that I often influx a
conversation or social gathering with my “moments”. There’s a lot of things I have done/said that
would make more sense if they were never done/said (i.e. the time I raised my
hand and asked to go to the bathroom in a college class, the semester I used
fabric softener to wash my clothes instead of detergent, I won’t elaborate). I’ve involuntarily made myself the rodeo jockey
in many friend groups. But honestly, I
can be funny without being stupid (believe it or not). Actually, I’m pretty sharp, and my jokes are
often wasted on people who don’t understand them. So like… who’s problem is that?
6. I realized why I doubt myself at times.
For the most part, I have an extensive supply of self-confidence
and ego. I don’t care if I sound full of
myself for saying this, because I never used to be this way and I worked hard
to gain the self-assurance that I possess today (also I owe this to other
people who worked hard to instill these traits in me). But unfailingly, I have times where I
seriously question who I am, where I’m going in life, what I said at the bar
last night, you get it. I ask myself if
I’m a good person, if I’m working hard enough, if I’m treating people fairly,
etc. When I do begin to doubt myself, I
often try to shove these feelings away, because they are uncomfortable and
alarming. But I’ve realized they come up
for good reason. They make me realize
when I’m not putting 100% into my work, if I’m being inconsiderate to the
people around me, if I’m starting to show up late to my job; things in life I
don’t want to be known for. Doubting
yourself can be good. Doubting yourself
can put you back on the right track.
So what was my biggest accomplishment of 2015 you may ask?
Brace yourself.
I GOT A FREE CALENDER FOR BEING QUOTED IN IT!!! (Yea anticlimactic
ending but this is my version of Old Man Parker’s sexy leg lamp prize from
A Christmas Story.) Not only did some people think the assortment of words that
fell out of my yapper were philosophically eloquent, but they decided to post
them on my favorite month of the year (June!).
On another note, I didn’t think much of the quote when I first wrote it. Until the words I’d forgotten I’d once written were pasted above the 30 days of June, and started to stick in the back of my head these past few days of January. While not mind-blowing, "Getting lost may be the best approach to finding your way. Go figure" is definitely relevant to a lot of humans out of there (calendar-worthy relevant mind you).
On another note, I didn’t think much of the quote when I first wrote it. Until the words I’d forgotten I’d once written were pasted above the 30 days of June, and started to stick in the back of my head these past few days of January. While not mind-blowing, "Getting lost may be the best approach to finding your way. Go figure" is definitely relevant to a lot of humans out of there (calendar-worthy relevant mind you).
I should thank my (FREE) 2016 calendar for reminding me
of the thought that perfectly wraps up my 2015 (and if we’re gonna be real,
probably my whole life). Hopefully my
lost phase is almost over so one day, I too can find my way in the world
*picture a bald eagle soaring gloriously over snowcapped peaks against a
vivacious blue sky*.
But who am I kidding. I still need my GPS to get home from
the mall.
Keep Happy,
Em
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