Youthful Life: X

"Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that's life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever." Ray Bradbury Space - the final frontier. Positing life as a representation of space and all its wonders has come to be a useful metaphor for understanding the world. We are all the center of our own universes, or at least we're supposed to be. Sometimes we aren't. What happens when others in our experiences are centered in our lives or we don't perceive ourselves to be in the middle of our existences? My therapist called it a sort of a blackhole effect where the position that we should be finding ourselves in is instead occupied by a force that seems nearly impossible to overcome. Usually it has to do with children and not being fully positioned in the center of their lives growing up that forces them to take care of themselves sooner than usual, essentially becoming a full-grown star early. It's gravitational pull drawing absolute...

" Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend."  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.  I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm spent. I have spent the entirety of my life being "amazing." My modus operandi has long been going above and beyond, being awe-inspiring, doing the most, etc. So long as I can remember I have been performing. Maybe it's a caricature. Maybe it's a program. Maybe it's a life stoked in expectations, real, perceived, projected, and internalized that has run rampant. I have been putting on a show. I have been entertaining. I have been portraying the character that has been expected of me, or rather who I have thought I'm supposed to be. I am a person simultaneously whole and categorically broken. I am a soul betwixt and between worlds warped by social pressures, entrenched in a constant battle to be worthy, emboldened by a yearn to be enough. This strive to prove my brilliance, my value, my...

The 20s are all about making it through your days. College is tough as hell. Honestly, if you're a traditionally matriculated student it may very well be the most difficult thing you have ever encountered/experienced. There's times when things just pile up, pressure builds, and finally explode. Sometimes you need a good release. When the magma pours out, the lava cools, and the cloud settles in the catastrophic disastrous chaos that is life, you reach a new place. One that may be forever changed, but soon bound to be boisterously vivacious with new life. You're at ashfall.   Looking back at last week I realized just how out of control it actually was. I truly do not understand how I made it through. Definitely should have succumb to the temptations of accepting defeat and giving up, but nothing of the sort occurred. I guess the will to succeed, persevere and survive is just way too strong. In thinking of what to title this post I thought back to my art history class Mon...

The 20s are all about self evaluation. It's about taking a look in the mirror and coming to terms with who are. The facts of each and every one of our lives are different. Your life story can only be narrated by one voice, and that is your own. The baby boomer generation has told us we're special. We've been coddled and cared for. But what if we're just another average Joe? My facebook newsfeed lately has been covered in shared links (usually useless buzzfeed articles of gifs that perfectly coincide with a specific instance in someone's life) and most notably the "Why are Gen Y Yuppies are Unhappy." I read the article and it kind of infuriated me but then I reread and it really started to think about my life. I read the rebuttal article that kind of demolished the original but who cares (the journalist in me does ... way too much), the idea that I am nothing more than what your average careless, irresponsible, and frankly, apathetic student is a little...

Being a teenager is all about getting your priorities straight. A wise man once said, you make time what you feel is important. If you say you're busy that could mean that you're swamped like a bog in the bayou or that you honestly don't care enough to make time for what's being asked of you. A lot of times we say that other things are more important and that we cannot give our precious time to anything else. If it matters to you, you'll find the time and motivation to do something about it - just don't patronize others for feeling the same thing for a differ. I'm lacking in the sleep department, and need to make it my top item on my list of things to do - no more deprivation state).   You all know that I do the absolute utmost on a daily basis. I really should probably dial it down and get my life together before I just keel over and pass out ... permanently, but like Caesar (the great leader, not the salad) I'm way too ambitious to ever slow down....

Being a teenager is all about being your loud and out of control self. It's about being proud of who you are and what you represent. Teenagedom is the time to discover what makes you unique and make that apparent with everyone you meet. Get ready for the most epic weekend story of the semester when my campus's IRA (the R esidence H all A ssocation equivalent) traveled to our regional NEACURH conference. I live by the motto that literally everything is a competition, and the ultimate prize is the all time spirit stick. *Part 1 of 2 for the Mini's No Frills recap & the importance of spirit. You know your weekend is about to be amazing when it starts on Friday morning. Sam and I packed up our stuff and loaded up in our classically sketchy white van with the rest of our IRA delegation including the sassy Erica, random Knight, hilarious Bret, ridiculous boy-Sam, and our diva for an adviser, Jilliene. We set off from Burlington, VT and before I knew it we were zooming t...