mrpppp feelings about the internet while i use the internet jeez.

i just attempted to delete a bunch of crap from my facebook, also off my instagram. there's so much digital history it is insane. it is weird how scrolling through my timeline on facebook helps me remember things. like that just seems disturbing, how something as clinical and large and soulless as technology/the internet results in intense and poignant nostalgia - the reminders of people who have been important at some point in your life, but now are no longer friends, or people who used to be strangers are now your closest friends. that juxtaposition trips me up. i didnt really know what to do with my feelings, so i just sent shelby a bunch of screenshots, and vomited memories as text messages - stories of the boys i used to like, the ones i almost dated.. i laughed, but there was some sort of aching or longing for the past - not in a way that i want to relive them, but a realisation that those moments have happened and are over, and how many of them add up to how i am today. i recall the awkward encounters with new people, or being in new environments and think about how differently or more confidently i would respond now. but i also think about how in 20 years, i will look back to my present self and think similar thoughts.

i always wonder why my generation/people more and more feel the need to post things online, as if not posting it means it didnt actually happened. it's the affirmation is it not? from others, from strangers, putting it out there in the universe - like hi i'm here and i think i matter? tell me i matter. aren't i doing it now? how meta.

weird walk good but weird heavy night

shelby asked if i cared if she threw away big pieces of one of my works i asked her to help me cut up. i said nah i didnt wanna know what she did to them, just cut it up. i watched as this bulky obnoxious space-occupying thing became more hand-held manageable pieces of colour and line. are you bored i asked. nah, she said, i'm cutting up this piece. good. i heard the rain falling outside, it was coming down pretty hard. we grabbed drinks and chairs and hung out on the porch. i watched as the rain pooled into puddles, raindrops jumping off the surface of the puddles, light being reflected off the wet streets and sidewalks. i belt greenday. she laughed and took a video. we walked back to hers when the rain got a little lighter. i told her i love her, and she said to text when i reached home. i listened to the sound of the rain, and strolled home. i never stroll. i always know where i need to get to and how to get there. today, i didn't. each step seemed heavy, and exhausted, and anxious all at the same time. the shadow of the umbrella made me feel like someone was following me. it was merely the shadow of the umbrella. i turned around to check, and saw a guy walking his dog. i kept walking. i turned the keys to unlock the door to my apartment. i texted shelby that i was home and sent her a song on spotify.

hole in the ground

i've been making maps of my thoughts. linear paragraphs just don't seem to work lately. 

i woke up to a text from shelby "are you awake"

i am now. i replied. it's been comforting having one of my best friends be 10 minutes away. it's been three years, i look back on the three years, and it is kinda crazy how much i've changed - grown, regressed in some areas maybe, just learnt how to exist more independently in this world. holding the keys to my own apartment always feels a little surreal. like it's "my place", unless you move out in singapore, youll never be able to say that.

i remember when i was like 8, i made a sign for the door to me and my sister's room, i think i almost asked my parents for the keys to the room, maybe i did, just to demarcate a space that was "mine". i know that to my parents that room is mine but there was something in actual possession, that was enticing. isn't that a human thing though, or an animalistic thing - to want, to desire, to chase, to finally have. then when we have, don't we always want more? hm. there are so many things that aren't ours to have - it could be ours to borrow, or hold for a while, but sometimes it's just not ours to have. it kinda sucks. but also, it would be boring if we could have everything we desired. that seems too much.

ugh i wanna curl up into a ball and roll into a hole in the ground.

demogorgon come get me.

walked to shelby's for four quarters

i miss my sister a lot, i think we have grown closer in recent years, and it feels just kinda sad that we are each sort of missing a part of the other's life after growing up together for so many years. i think instead of reaching out and making contact i have a tendency to distance myself because it is easier to be numb than to be constantly missing. but i think we are going to skype soon. im looking forward to it.

it's been a few days of being incredibly grateful for the friends around me. 5 of them helped move me and two of my roommates in yesterday in 3.5 hours. it was such record time and we had a great time too. i don't know. something i have been processing lately is the way we accept love, or receive love. there were moments that i just felt bad that i needed so much help to move, if i could i would do it myself. but there were points that we were laughing so hard, and enjoying each other's presence. and they were just helping me unconditionally. it was something truly humbling, i think to receive love not because you deserve it, nor because you are a good person but simply because you are loved. 

on another note, it has been more than a month since i have had more than 2 hours to myself i think. the ireland trip was in very close proximity to 19 other students, and 3 faculty/staff; at oxbow we were constantly around others, living with others too. and there is just a deep sense of loneliness - some sort of forgetting how to exist by myself. i know i will eventually love it again but right now it just feels odd and kind of unsettling. 

the new place has been such a treat though - to finally have a place to call home. not being in the loop is so great. i feel like i can breathe again - and being so close to shelby too, is lovely. i walked over to her place just now just to exchange a dollar for 4 quarters for laundry just like that. it used to take close to an hour to get to hers from mine. shelby also drove me to target and helped me carry a bunch of crap into my place earlier today. we desperately needed a microwave - which i wanted to buy from the target in the loop and carry it back to my place. she insisted it was too heavy and said she'd drive me. it was fun house shopping. 

there's been so much to process. i doubt any of it is gonna make it to the internet, but it has been both a challenging, yet incredibly incredibly beautiful summer of great growth and understanding myself better, loving myself and others more - with many questions of existentialism, faith and also much sass in between. 

i hope your summer is going wonderfully :)