All the Stories Are True

Preparing for a New Year

I find myself on this cusp of the new year thinking about words and language. I am thinking about how for my whole life I was told that things meant things they didn’t mean. How that is a particular form of gaslighting and control that strips you of things that become increasingly hard to get back. It makes you question your communication, it makes you question your ability. How do you know that…

I think about my blog on most days but, as you can see from the 3 month+ gap, I don’t do anything about it. Things feel like both too much and too little at the same time, mixed up. I think about how when I started this blog I had such a specific focus, and now my focus seems more vague. There are a lot of reasons. I’ve been struggling with going to sleep lately. My anxiety has been kicking in…

Stress and New Beginnings

I find myself thinking a lot lately about confidence. I haven’t been writing much (obviously) and I feel like I am so caught up in my own head about it. I think of at least half a dozen blog topics a week, but I do nothing with them – not even write them down unfortunately. I feel tired of my own voice in print, worry that I am in a rut. I get afraid that I will sound stupid or cliché. I get…

Dear Baby Me: May 22 & 23, 1997

Thursday 8:18pm Dear Steve, I hate Zach’s parents! They’ve now stopped us from talking to each other. Doesn’t that suck? I hate ‘em, I hate ‘em, I hate ‘em! Maybe they’ll ease up sometime after his b-day. I just got off the phone with Zach. He’s going to write. I can’t decide whether or not it’s a comfort that he cried for an hour when his parents told him. I think it is. It’s very sweet and it…

Dear Baby Me: May 20, 1997

Teusday 6:27pm Dear Steve, I hate my mom! She’s unreasonable, she never lets me do anything, and she’s a BITCH! First off Ashley asked if I could spend the night. Her mom said yes but my mom said you’ve got you’re work to do tomorrow, you’ve got school to do tomorrow ect., ect., ect. But you know what I really hate? What I hate is the way she’s alway’s dissing my friends. Ashley’s a liar, a…

Saturday was my graduation. I thought maybe after a few days I would know what to say about it, but I find that it’s still hard to find the words. It was a long day. The ceremony itself was 4 hours long and then we had the party. But honestly, everything was perfect. It was so inspiring to see everyone graduating. At Fairhaven, because the school is small, every student gets to choose a faculty…

Dear Baby Me: May 12, 1997

Dear Steve, I’ve only got one more page and then this book is done! Computer class is almost over. I don’t know what me and Zach are going to do about getting together after that. We’ll have to think of something. It has been a gorgeous weekend and so far good weather is continuing. I’m listening to Freak by Silver Chair on the End. It’s a cool song. I have to clean my room. It’s stupid! Mom says…

Dear Steve, 9:35pm Zach called me last night from his friends house. Kaleb (his friend) was on the other line and the three of us talked for half an hour. Then Zach, Kaleb, and Jordan came over this morning and we talked for over an hour. As for my opinions on them Kaleb’s really ugly but really nice and fun to tease. He reminds me alot of Kermit (the camp counseler not the frog) and so I started…

I’ve got two things running around in my head right now (significantly neither one of them are my final undergraduate paper I should be working on right now) and I want to put them both into this blog entry, but I don’t know how well they’re going to fit. They’re connected but maybe not connected enough? Who can tell without trying. Also I feel odd and nervous because when I finish this, my next…

What to do if you have 90 minutes this weekend

Last night I watched a movie that made me wish I still believed. Not because of the strength of the convictions or arguments of the film, but just because I know that if I still believed I might have some standing to argue that Christians should see this movie. But I’m only a heathen and I have very few Christian friends these days. So instead I will talk to the great wide internet. The movie is…

I had a good discussion with a friend today and I was confronted with the reality of my privilege again. We were talking about school and how they were having trouble going back because they would have to work and I asked, confused, if they didn’t get loans. They are very kind and answered that they did but it wasn’t enough. I listened for a while as they sketched for me the life they were living…

One of the things I never took into account when I was younger was that mental health was not an either/or kind-of state. As a teenager I, like many other teenagers I knew, held onto my depression and anxiety as markers of who I was as a person. I was concerned about medication or the idea of “getting better” because it seemed threatening to my identity. In the past few years there have been a…

Well, the quarter is in full swing. Last week I spent every day doing something, often many somethings. I have had sewing class, which is very exciting. I can’t say I have changed my world or anything yet but I did make a hat my very own self this week out of a sweater. So that was an accomplishment. I feel kind-of genuinely excited to try more things, which I think is probably the biggest…

Title in reference to Mary Oliver’s poem, which I have been thinking about a lot this week. So first things first — I did not get into grad school. I actually thought this would make my next steps very clear. I would just have to get a job and apply again next year, but it turns out it is not quite that clear. I mean, I will have to do those things but now there are other possibilities for…

So I have not been great at follow-through this quarter. Too much going on, I suppose? I was actually just reminded of blogging because one of my classmates made a blog for our class project and I was super excited. Hooray blogs! Someday I will be good about this on a regular basis. Maybe. I can’t quite give you all a run-down of my quarter yet, or rather I refuse to. I still have one paper left…

This is the week. At least, I am relatively positive it is the week. The grad school I have applied to says that they will be letting those of us early applying people (like me, that would be me) know by February 28th. And that is definitely this week. I don’t even really know what I am waiting for. The website says that they may contact you “via email or postal mail” and why on earth would they…