Aeba Suki Suki

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My Melody is a feminist icon-- she always supports her sisters and spreads positive energy wherever she goes. Recently I've been rewatching Onegai My Melody and I have to say that Melo is absolutely my inspiration for 2019. 

Speaking of which, for most people, the end of the year is a reflective time, and I am no exception. Last year, I did a little year-in-review post, but, although I've done many other New Years posts for this blog, I've decided to resist the urge of doing a formal "here are cool things I did this year" essay -- for fear of glamorizing a year that was not my personal best. And, truth be told, I never really felt a sense of pride when I listed off my accomplishments for the year-- it always makes me feel guilty because it's like, do I really need to publicly stroke my ego that way in order to feel like a year was worthwhile? Does anyone even care? And it wasn't really the big moments that mattered anyway; in retrospect it's all the little things the year was composed of that I remember-- not the projects I completed. And anyway whenever I rattle off what I've done there's always the lingering sentiment that I should have done more. 

So instead, to commemorate this New Years, I'll talk about what I want to learn in 2019. For one, I'd really like to know when it's appropriate to "cut someone off," whether you have to give your reasons for said cutting off, and when you know something is worth holding onto.

I'm famously bad at letting things go. It's a double edged sword. There's the obvious benefit of having an extensive collection of collage materials as a result of my hoarder tendencies, and the perk of being persistent and courageous. But this trait manifests itself in stubbornness and a general lack of flexibility and being clingy etc too.

I'm not really prepared for how that will affect my relationships, so in general, I keep to myself. That said, unexpected events transpire sometimes. In 2018 I had several romantic entanglements, the aftermath of which I was-- and still am --unsure of how to deal with. If things ended amicably is it still best to distance myself from them on social media, just for my emotional health? How will that be received? Is that considered being melodramatic? Am I a horrible person for wanting to stay in contact with a former *~* lover *~* solely because he could be a good contact to have later on?

What about friendships? How do you even end a friendship? How do you know when you've outgrown a friend? Or when a friend has outgrown you? I find maintaining friendships to be far more complex than romantic relationships, perhaps because friendships are more varied in nature, I guess. I've been told strong friendships can withstand long periods of absence, but are friends really worth keeping if they're not there for you-- or even trying to be there for you?

It's hard to figure out what's self care and what's extreme narcissism. On the flip side, it's hard to figure out what's just being a good person, and what's a result of being manipulated. I always thought that you should stand by people even if they don't always stand by you, but now I'm questioning that. I don't expect 2019 to have all the answers.

But with any luck it should offer some clarity. And there's only so much you can find out about through books... I suppose my New Year's resolution is to stop isolating myself and try to interact with the world more.

But even that opens up a whole new line of inquiry-- interacting with the world more than it's necessary to, particularly in this cultural/political climate, can be detrimental to one's mental health. Even so, New Year's resolutions, at least in my eyes, have always been about forcing yourself to do things you don't necessarily want to do in hopes of becoming a better person (eating healthy, exercising, cleaning more often), and that's why people seldom follow through. But each year, we try again, and so, in 2019, it will continue.

dry and worthless monument to our love

I'm working on a poetry book at the moment. It's not especially fancy, and I'm not even necessarily proud of the poems. Most of the poems included in the collection were written during a time in my life where I felt like I was living how a young person should live-- rebelling against ambiguous causes with actions that had no direct correlation to the entity (or whatever) I claimed to be reacting against and were much more in service to personal pleasure/hedonism (which I suppose is revolutionary in itself?), going to parties, and, of course, forming short-lived relationships with people I pretended to "know" but really just conceptualized.

At the time that I wrote the poems, they felt very real and visceral and raw. But once that time in my life ended (it was quite brief-- I'll get into that later), they became more distant and diary-like. I hung onto them as a way of preserving something I deemed worth remembering. The first time I shared one of the poems with a friend I couldn't help thinking I'd made a terrible mistake. She was kind and gave me incredibly useful feedback-- but somehow sharing the poem felt like a betrayal of my past self's privacy. It was public now; it was observed now, and, like Schrodinger's cat, the outcome (the purpose/function of the poems) was somehow changed.

It wasn't mine anymore. The poems didn't have a single definite meaning that I assigned to them-- that was now in the eye of the beholder. But my friend's reaction to the poem also made me realize that I did want to publish them-- for what reason I'm still not sure --but now that they felt public anyway, I might as well make them public.

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I began to look at the poems through an editorial lens, and they lost even more of their original meaning-- and once again it felt sort of wrong. They were no longer raw, now they were aged and needed attention to look presentable. Saying "this works, that doesn't" to something that had been a pure and spontaneous work of emotion is almost disrespectful. But also necessary, I suppose. The few friends I had shared my poetry with related to it in some way. Even if it wasn't the intended purpose of the poems, I think I'm choosing to publish the collection for them.

Putting together the collection has also made me reevaluate that period in my life. I've definitely glamorized it. In retrospect I was able to look at that era and the relationships that I formed as something that I should have done more of. But the past me that wrote those poems was an emotional wreck. Those relationships, that lifestyle (if it could be called that) took a toll. I put up with it because I thought I was supposed to do these things and disregarded the damage it caused to my mental health.

I'm not extroverted. I don't like going to parties, or getting off my face, or even socializing in general (I'm fully aware this makes me sound like a reclusive hermit). I'm not casual-- I don't dress casually, or speak casually, so I'm not sure what made me think that casual relationships were a good idea.

It took me a long time to really accept these aspects of myself, and make decisions based off of them/what's best for me, because these things are in deliberate contrast to the version of youth that was described in books and TV shows and movies (and for good reason-- I wouldn't watch a teen movie about a girl who lies in bed and watches Netflix all day either) and to a lesser extent, by my friends.

There are still times when I think I'm living life wrong and not making use of my maybe-moderately-pleasant-in-a-certain-light looks, my lack of responsibility, my physical health, etc. When my slightly younger peers describe to me their escapades at homecoming dances and football games I'm hit with thoughts like, "I didn't take advantage of high school while I had it and now it's gone and I have no real, typical high school memories! What will I tell the kids I don't plant to have?" I have similar thoughts when my friends tell me about college parties and all the new experiences they're having. I feel this sort of sense of urgency like I have to go out this very instant and experience whatever it is I'm supposed to be experiencing, even though I know my expectations are impossible to meet because of who I am as a person.

I hold out that I could change in the future. Maybe when I encounter the right circumstances, the right group of friends these activities that felt forced and uncomfortable will be natural and organic like they are for the people I'm surrounded by. But I'm not going to get that by conforming to some vague standard about what my life has to be like at this age. I'm happy where I am now, and open to what the future holds.