hedgehog life

the secret of longevity

the elaborate ruse you called my life

DAVID HOCKNEY

it isn’t your foremother’s magic, but make due 🌹🔪✨

I think about love on a scale from 1 to 10. Most of us find a 6 or 7, and that’s why we have divorce. It’s the truth. We settle for that 6 or 7. But I like to think Kevin is Chiron’s 10. He’s found that and he realizes that there’s no reason to settle for a 6 or a 7 because, “I know this person is my 10. Whether or not this person believes I’m his 10, I’m going to devote my life to this person entirely.” That’s why the line where he says, “You’re the only man that’s ever touched me,” for me, was the most amazing, most beautiful thing I’ve seen in cinema, period. Because that’s what we strive for as people, to find that one person because they’re there. If Kevin doesn’t feel that they should be together, Chiron is just going to die a miserable person because that’s his person and he won’t settle for anything else. But I like to think they’re together, walking in Central Park hand-in-hand when they’re 90 years old. - Trevante Rhodes

depression is one of those things that once you acknowledge you have it (which i only did, like, last year) it’s not a thing that sort of dissipates. i was silly to think that when i was a kid i cured myself of my depression (even though i was diagnosed with it at 10) but all i really did was juxtapose myself against my mum and think, “well i’m not that bad.” and as there’s hardly any nuanced conversations about what depression is, and what it feels like to be in the midst of it, it’s very easy to characterize it as something that is inexplicable, inorganic and alien. 

so much has happened in 2017. from my mum’s recent suicide attempt, to the publisher i was working with going under, to the Muslim ban, to feeling like i’m suffocating under the exhaustion of working and feeling like i’m not getting anywhere… i am finally looking for ways out that don’t include some external factor. like: i’ll be happier if i get this job; or if i make this much money in this month i’ll be ok. everything comes back to feeling productive but truth is, i haven’t been feeling productive for this year’s entirety. most days i can’t even write, and i don’t want to because it feels so hard.

as a creative, how do you balance happiness (when you have a proclivity to/for sadness) without it being attached to your creative worth, and value of your work. the reality, for me and many others, is that i can’t self care without money—but then, how do you make money if you’re a creative? you have to create! and if you work another job, you feel so depleted to actually create… it’s an endless cycle. 

i keep saying to myself, i just want it to get easier. but i’m not entirely convinced it ever does. and that’s overwhelming. 

here’s a moment of me, maybe first time in 2017, when i felt deeply content: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQyYwmzl3bw/?taken-by=fariha_roisin