I suppose I shouldn't feel bad, because none of my resolutions were about posting on here more frequently. But I do. I feel bad. Like a friend you've neglected because you've been busy, you really have, and then you happen to run into them somewhere...that's how this feels.
You'll be happy to know, or not...maybe you hate my guts and I have no idea, that I've held up my January resolution so far. I've hit the gym for 13 days straight. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be, and I'm actually enjoying making it part of my daily routine.
Over Christmas break I was discussing writing with a family friend. I've grown up with her practically as a second mother, and she'd always been encouraging and helped foster what could have been a writing career. She asked me if I still journaled and I told her no. I don't. I haven't looked at a blank notebook that wasn't school related in years.
As I hit my 20s, I've struggled with figuring out how I feel about things. Journaling and writing started to feel too self-absorbed to me. Not that I'm the deepest fish in the ocean, on the contrary, I'm pretty shallow when it all comes down to it.
After our talk, I pulled out the last journal I wrote in and read some of my stuff. I was impressed. I sounded super deep and cool and artsy and like someone I'd talk shit on but secretly think was really cool. Reading it now, three or four years later, felt like I was reading someone else's writing.
Am I okay with having progressed from that? Do I wish I still had that thought process to be able to pump out beautiful prose? Sometimes. But do I miss the incredible self-absorption that comes from being that introspective? Not at all.
I remember once I read a quote from Alicia Silverstone that was listed as one of the worst quotes of all time. It read: "I think it [Clueless] was deep in the way it was light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness." At the time I laughed at it because everyone else was, and even then I'm sure I didn't understand it's full implications.
Now, I think the quote is rather profound. Maybe my self-diagnosed shallow-ness is a result of "being okay" with not having those darker thoughts.
Another interaction that still haunts me is one from the film
Girl, Interrupted. I'm not building a case for my not being "dark" anymore, and I'm aware of that. It's one of the final scenes, where Wynona Ryder's character has been brought back to the institution and she's talking with her nurse discussing depression. She says, "But Lisa thinks it's a gift. That it let's you see the truth."
The nurse replies, "Lisa has been here for 8 years."
I'd seen that movie a bunch of times before I ever remembered that part and it's stuck with me ever since.
I have some friends who I still keep in contact with who are artists/musicians/writers. I can see it in their faces when they have a conversation with me that they almost feel sorry for me - that I'm not really one of
them anymore - based on my career path, my conversation topics, etc. I meet new people and see the small smirk or the sideways glance when they find out I've read a certain author, or that I own a collection of specific books. Is it because I curl may hair and wear dresses? Is it because I'm the girl who owns a car seat for her dog (I totally do)? Ultimately, do I seem too "light" to have ever had any "dark"? If that's the case, I think I'm okay with it.
There isn't really a point to this post. I'm not saying I've figured anything out, I'm not saying I'm happier one way or another. But I'm okay with not having things figured out yet and I'm okay with not pursuing it. Conclusion paragraphs never were my thing.
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